President Arthur Peter Mutharika has directed that interns currently under the paying internship program should be offered full-time employment to fill the existing vacancies in various government departments and agencies.

Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Labour, Youth, Sports and Manpower Development Joseph Mwandidya disclosed the development Thursday during a press briefing at Capital Hill in Lilongwe.

“It has pleased the Head of State that the interns should be absorbed into the mainstream government service.

“So with that directive very soon we will be calling for the interns to bring their CVs so that we can start offering them the permanent job into government,” Mwandidya said.

Meanwhile, he said, all the ground work is being done hand in hand with Office of the President and Cabinet (OPC), Treasury and Department of Human Resources Management (DHRM) and other statutory bodies.

“We did not want to work in isolation but to work in unison with other ministries,” Mwandidya said.

He, however, said the full-time job offer will be based on performance, attitude and professional qualifications, among other factors.

“We don’t want to bring every Jim and Jack, even those that are not performing because at the end of the day we may not do justice to the people of Malawi,” he said.

He further said the President has directed that the internship program for existing interns be extended by one year and that new others be recruited to work together with the existing.

Mwandidya said the intention for extending the existing cohort is that when government started the program, there were some anomalies including no proper orientation.

“Some of the interns did not know that it was not a full-time job while others did not know what next; but the truth of the matter is to train the youths so that they can later search for jobs with confidence,” he said.

One of the interns in the Ministry of Labour Martin Bota, expressed appreciation for government’s reaction to the petition presented by the interns to government recently.

In the petition, the interns asked government to consider them for permanent jobs, among other issues.

“I am very much pleased with the directive. I thank the President for considering us by responding to the petition. We have received this in a positive way,” Bota said.

The first internship cohort initiated in June 2018 was scheduled to run for one year up to June this year.