## 4.0 FINDINGS 

## 4.1 PLANNING IN FMD CONTROL 

## 4.1.1 STRATEGIC PLANNING 

## CHAPTER 4 

The Performance Management System (PMS) in the Public Service requires that Ministries and their Departments develop strategic plans which articulate what they would deliver to the public during the six-year planning period. 27 

It was observed during the audit that the DVS had not developed a comprehensive long-term departmental strategic plan. Such a plan could provide a clear direction for the department’s FMD control efforts, identifying objectives and strategies to accomplish those objectives as well as outlining measurable goals supported with realistic, quantifiable benchmarks for monitoring and evaluating the department’s overall performance in the long term. Instead, the DVS developed several strategy documents such as the Fence Strategy, Fence Maintenance Strategy, the 2014/2015 Annual Performance Plan, the 2013 Surveillance Plan as well as the Annual Disease Surveillance Plan October 2014- March 2016. Such strategies lacked clear and measurable time bound objectives. While such documents were adequately relevant to FMD control, it was important to integrate them into a comprehensive Departmental plan in the form of a strategic plan, which could serve as a blue print of the DVS commitment to delivering on its mandate. Absence of a Departmental Strategic Plan was attributed to an oversight of management on the need for it (strategic plan). This oversight emanated from consideration that there was already a Ministerial Strategic Plan in place. However, it should be noted that such a plan was to a considerable extent generic and lacking clear focus on critical aspects of the mandate of the DVS such as disease control. 

