FENA: Among 22 planned projects from the Public Administration Reform Fund there is also "Business Registration Reform Road Map" which will draw the road, i.e. determine direction of action and obligations of institutions on changes of laws and conditions that are required in order for business registration in BiH to be done in more efficient manner, has been pointed out today at press conference in the Public Administration Reform Coordinator's Office in Sarajevo.  

It has already been worked on this at entity levels in BiH, but this project is mutual and we all have to stick up to it by making equal conditions for business registration to be done in the same way in whole BiH, has been said by  National Public Administration Reform Coordinator, Semiha Borovac.

"We expect that this European standard, which is to do the business registration at one place, electronically, less costly possible, within three days, will start being applied by us around 2015" Borovac has said.  

While speaking about realized and planned activities of Coordinator’s Office, Borovac has mentioned that the main reform objective is creating more efficient, more transparent and more accountable public administration which will provide citizens and business community with quality services.   

"This means that the reformed public administration should give a chance to our country to associate with the EU Member States. The public administration reform that we implement in BiH is firstly oriented towards increasing professionalism, ability and quality of civil servants’ performances, which directly reflects on quality of services offered to citizens and business community by public administration" Borovac has said.

During 2013, according to her, constant monitoring, i.e. coordination of measures from strategic documents, has been done.

"Our intention was to accelerate the reform process, since the whole last and first six months of this year there has been a certain slowdown in implementing measures of public administration reform, therefore out of 66% of planned measures 40% of measures has been realized according to the revised action plan. We have pointed out to this fact and determined the set of recommendations adopted by the Council of Ministers of BiH by obliging institutions to implement the recommendations" has been added by Borovac.

She has said that they have included almost all the institutions at state level in reporting on implemented measures and established the constant cooperation with representatives of those institutions, which is in some way a guarantee that they will be able to realize the stipulated measures in 2013.  

"Exact data on this we can provide after January 15 because the institutions are obliged to submit their information by that date, and then the data will be summed up in the Annual report on progress which we prepare for the Council of Ministers of BiH" Borovac has said.

She has said that they have entered 2013 with proposal of 22 new projects to be financed from the Public Administration Reform Fund and developed required documentation for nine of those. Eleven projects financed from this Fund have been implemented.

Borovac has said that this year in the area of strategic planning, coordination and policy creation continued has been realization of project  Blueprint of central government bodies development in BiH (second phase) and the project relates to strengthening general secretariats which by the new model of public administration work should become the key institutions which will monitor the execution of work program of the Council of Ministers, entity government and the Government of the District of Brčko and improving cooperation with ministries on reaching those objectives.

"In this reform area implemented has also been continuation of one significant project which relates to strategic planning, policy creation and coordination. The first phase has encompassed 13 ministries and second project phase encompasses all ministries in BiH and departments in the Brčko District, so through this project the civil servants in those ministries will really receive the knowledge and skills on drafting strategic plans and policies for certain areas" Borovac has said.  

In the area of public finance in this year, according to her, results of the project Budget information management system (BMIS) have already been shown. Almost 300 budget institutions have been connected by this project into one system that enables an on-line access, quality monitoring and coordination of all steps in budget preparation. The system has been upgraded by the automatic salary calculation module and the new project relates to the enlargement of this information system by a software module for the gender sensitive budgeting component.

Enough has also been done on conciliating the project Public-private partnership whose application begins in 2014. It encompasses all four administration levels, requires adoption and agreement of new law regulation, training of civil servants and general promotion of the public-private partnership model.

It has been long since announcing the project of modernization of human resources management which is being expected a lot from in civil service since this is the project from IPA funds. In this year the European Commission has finished the selection of implementer, beginning of implementation of project is January 2014 and its basic purpose is to make analytical estimation of vacancies in order to improve the systematization of vacancies and job descriptions.

Continued has also been the project which relates to trainings of civil servants for work on computers, i.e. on improvement of information technologies. In the previous phase around 2.400 civil servants have passed this training, while this year the training has been planned for 1.780 civil servants.

In the reform area of administrative procedures and administrative services realization of project of education of administrative procedure managers and inspectors in BiH, financed from IPA funds, has begun. Around 1.500 civil servants will pass additional trainings for acquiring knowledge and skills in managing administrative procedures in order for this area to be advanced.

Very significant is the area of E-Governance which stipulates modernization of public administration, establishment of information technologies in public administration work, which should ensure an electronic communication between public administration and citizens.

Borovac has pointed out to the completed project related to establishment of interoperability framework in BiH, which practically means that this project has created a legal basis for all the subjects, i.e. public administration institutions in BiH to communicate among themselves, exchange data on information for which they make official record and created has been an obligation of institutions to make this information available to one another.