RECRUITMENT IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR WITHOUT COMPETITION SHOULD BE STOPPED

In 2016, in spite of moratorium, there were several thousands of new employments made in 75% of administrative bodies, usually without competition procedure!

Forum entitled „Transparent and meritorious employments for better public administration“ was held today in Sarajevo, organized by the Centers for civic initiatives (CCI) and Transparency International in Bosnia and Herzegovina (TI BiH), in order to provide an overview of the current course of public administration reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and to support the adoption of reform laws and bylaws related to this field.
„Issue of conducting public competition during the recruiting process is one of the critical points of the employment with the public administration. There are many deficiencies in this regard when civil servants are employed, but that process is far less regulated and transparent in the rest of the public sector, i.e. outside the civil service which includes extra-budgetary funds, public enterprises and so on. Over 80% of the employees in public administration work there, and the selection method of the employment commission, transparency of the process, competencies and independence of the commission, are entirely decided on by the management of the bodies that make decisions on employments based on different types of sub-legal acts – which is not good practice“ – it was said at today’s Forum.
„Public enterprises and public institutions have a large share of public revenues and expenditures, number of employees, and their significance is exceptional. Regulations governing the procedure of appointment of administrative and managerial staff, as well as recruitment, are far less precise than the regulations governing the work of civil service. There are no mechanisms that would provide the appointment and employment of the best candidates. Recent changes to the Labour Law of the Federation of BiH, that introduce the obligation of announcing public competitions in public enterprises and public institutions, could significantly improve the recruitment procedure in the entire public sector of the Federation of BiH. The purpose of today’s Forum is to initiate the creation of the regulation that would, among other things, prescribe in details the procedure of announcing and conducting the public competition, in order to secure the complete transparency, appointment and employment of the best candidates. This will be the first major step in the reform of public administration“ – said at today’s Forum Adis Arapovic, CCI program manager.
Through its Center for providing legal assistance in anti-corruption fight TI BiH for several years now mostly receives reports of the citizens related to the various types of irregularities in the recruitment procedure in the public sector. Citizens usually complain about the lack of transparency and clear criteria, even in cases that imply the public competition as obligatory. A certain number of complaints regularly refers to public enterprises, and these are usually complaints that point out the fact that there is no obligation of conducting the public competition procedure. „Employment in the public sector, based on universal principles of public competition and meritoriousness, has been recognized by the public as an issue of ultimate interest, and the task of the creators of regulations is to be guided by the principles of equality, fair and equitable competition to arrange all regulations governing this issue“ – it was concluded on the basis of findings and research conducted by TI BiH.

Press rls 05.05.2017