CCPC-First African Institution to Achieve High Performance Status
The Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) has become the first African Organization to be accredited as a High-Performance Organisation (HPO) in Africa by the HPO Centre in Netherlands. An HPO organisation is one that achieves financial and non-financial results that are exceedingly better than those of its peer groups over a
period of 5 years by focusing in a disciplined way of doing things that matter most to the organization.
In December 2014, the Ministry of Commerce, Trade and Industry (MCTI) took up the HPO challenge, and CCPC was nominated as one of the institutions to pilot the implementation of the HPO program under the tutelage of Dr Andre de Waal the consultant from the HPO Centre in the Netherlands.
Speaking at the accreditation ceremony held at the Taj Pamodzi Hotel, in Lusaka November 2016, Commission Board Chairperson Mr. Kelvin Fube Bwalya said the accreditation was a good example that public institutions could also be high performing as Government Ministries, departments and agencies were misconstrued as none performing.
“Public organisations are often criticised for the casual approach to the carrying out of their mandate and some members of the public have even lost faith in some public institutions because of their work culture. However, this is clearly not so as CCPC has demonstrated that any institution can be high performing,” said Mr Bwalya.
He said CCPC having attained this prestigious HPO status, was expected to deliver exceptional public service in the most professional and efficient manner and that the accreditation should lead to increased public confidence in the Commission and Government as a whole as this would eventually translate into reduced cost of doing business.
“The aim is to ensure that the public and various stakeholders are delighted with the service delivery they receive from Government institutions. This in the long run translates in reducing the cost of doing business,” Mr Bwalya said.
Speaking at the same event HPO consultant Dr Andre De Waal said CCPC was the first African organisation to receive this prestigious accreditation and noted that in order to achieve the HPO status, CCPC incorporated five (5) key factors that accelerated performance improvement in the day to day service delivery offered to the public.
“I am delighted to note that CCPC understood that it needed to balance the five factors of high performance in order to achieve this status which include quality management, quality employees, culture of openness, stakeholder collaboration and networking and continuous improvement”. Dr Andree said
Receiving the plaque on behalf of the Commission, Executive Director Mr Chilufya Sampa said the HPO programme was appreciated by the CCPC Management and the Board of Commissioners because the aim was to not only attain its strategic objectives but also ensure that CCPC improved its service delivery to the public.
He stated that organizational performance largely hinged on the motivation of the members of staff and that motivation was triggered by several factors among which a conducive working environment ranked high hence the adoption of the HPO programme.
Mr Sampa explained that to attain the HPO status, Commission employees needed to work within times, meet targets, work according to the work plans and be able to deliver quality work, enthusiastically and passionately.
Mr. Sampa further committed to mainstream the high performance mentality into the day to day operations of CCPC in order to make the organisation efficient in executing its mandate and also make it an example of excellence in the public service.
