TI BiH presented research: Most citizens see corruption in public administration, 20 years later, reforms still at the very beginning

Sarajevo, November 30, 2023 – As many as 68.8% of BiH citizens do not trust the work of employees in the public administration, and most of them (82.9%) believe that money from the budget is not spent in the right way. The lack of trust was also affected by the fact that more and more citizens see corruption in public administration, where almost four fifths of the respondents (78.6%) believe that public employees got a job in this sector “through connections”. These are the data from the survey of public opinion throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina, which Transparency International in BiH (TI BiH) presented today at the conference entitled “Two Decades of Public Administration Reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina – (Un)learned Lessons”.

After 20 years of work on reforms, according to the latest report of the European Commission, Bosnia and Herzegovina is still in the early or initial phase, and the key reason is the lack of political will, which was also shown by the data on the effectiveness of implementation of measures. Work by experts in the field of public administration reform was also presented at the conference, and research revealed that Bosnia and Herzegovina is the worst in the region in this regard. Only 14% of the planned activities from the Action Plan were fulfilled, and there was no progress in terms of human resources management, transparency and accountability, and the rationalization of public administration. On the other hand, the perception of citizens shows that the expected improvement of public services has also been absent.

“We have to admit that we are still far from our goals, which should be focused on the needs of citizens and harmonization with European standards. The quality of public services is at an absurdly low level, the digitization process is at the very beginning, while a high level of corruption affects the trust of citizens,” said Srđan Blagovčanin, chairman of the TI BiH Board of Directors.

This reform is one of the key reforms for the continuation of the European integration process, as announced today by the representatives of the EU and Sweden.

“Public administration reform is crucial for any modern society, it is closely related to the rule of law and is the key factor to the EU accession process. When this process started, significant steps were taken, but this process has stalled in recent years”, said the Ambassador of the Kingdom of Sweden to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Helena Lagerlöf.

“This is a topic that greatly affects the lives of citizens. This is one of the 14 remaining key priorities and the EU has so far helped BiH with over 200 projects in this area. A lot has been done, but there is still a lot of work in order for BiH to have a public administration that is professional,” said the Deputy Head of the EU Delegation, Adebayo Babajide.

Dragan Ćuzulan, the coordinator for the public administration reform of BiH, pointed out that BiH has important political decisions to make if this process is to be accelerated.

“The European Commission is very rigorous when it comes to public administration reform, but you can see that anti-European laws are still being passed here and there is no agreed and clear political commitment. We have done our part on the technical level, political decisions follow and that is crucial. We don’t have the luxury of waiting when it comes to EU requirements”, said Ćuzulan.

The conference, organized by TI BiH and the Public Administration Reform Coordinator’s Office  with the support of Sweden, was an opportunity for intensive discussions and exchange of experiences on key aspects of public administration reform.