AMMAN — A member of the Committee to Modernize the
Public Sector, speaking
anonymously to Al-Rai newspaper, made known some of the committee’s proposals
for dealing with the public sector administrative flaws in order to fulfill the
Royal vision for the country.
اضافة اعلان
The proposals, as published by the newspaper, were
received with mixed reactions by officials who either found them useful or
dismissed them as unfounded.
Former minister of public sector development
Maher Madadha told
Jordan News that the committee is not dealing with the
issues holistically, wondering how the committee could depend on the Civil
Service Bureau system “when it is defective”.
The committee, Madadha said, relies on the Civil
Service Bureau to nominate individuals for early retirement even though this is
the prerogative of the
Social Security Corporation.
According to Al-Rai’s article, the committee
proposals included restructuring the public sector, by relying on performance
and efficiency indicators, and setting standards of good governance when
appointing leadership positions, based on transparency, accountability, and
monitoring performance to reduce nepotism, favoritism, and corruption; offering
options for early retirement; and setting up a mechanism to merge ministries,
which would lead to a new managerial system and public institutions work
procedures.
According to Madadha, the committee’s vision is
“foggy”.
“Is it targeted at public resources or human
resources? Reform should be holistic, not partial,” he said, wondering how
early retirement could benefit human resources in the public sector.
Madadha suggested that the committee should handle
the public sector reform with the economy in mind.
“They should decide if the public sector’s aim is to
provide services and oversee them or only to organize the private sector
through new legislation.”
“If the government were to shrink, it would be
easier to deal with the human resources,” he added.
Radi Al-Atoum, former director-general of the
Institute of Public Administration, on the other hand, believes that said
proposals are the answer to issues faced over the years, particularly
concerning the performance and efficiency indicators of those in leading
positions, “a critical issue because many people get hired without knowing why
they were hired or what the goals they have to achieve during their time in
public service are”.
Atoum said that the performance and efficiency
indicators should be mentioned in officials’ job descriptions, adding that
“there should be follow up every three months, and if by the end of the year
the officials did not achieve the goals, they should be dismissed”.
Atoum also believes that it makes sense to merge
some ministries because many institutions have relatively similar goals or
services, “so instead of having many separate departments, merge them into one
department that should be managed by a board of directors and a minister”.
“I encourage these proposals; it is imperative to
restructure institutions,” he said.
At the same time, Atoum said that giving less than six
months to restructure the public sector in unrealistic, because it is a big
task.
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