Digitization of public administration significantly reduces the possibilities of corruption in relation to the economy and institutions, but regardless of all the positive effects, Republika Srpska and the Federation of BiH have been delaying doing so for years.
This conclusion can be drawn from the available information, which indicates that these processes are mostly carried out partially at the level of individual institutions or local communities, and not systematically, writes the CAPITAL business portal.
So the use of paper and walking around institutions is still the rule, not the exception. All of this opens the possibility for various corrupt actions in relation to officials, who act on behalf of public institutions and businessmen.
The extent to which this negative phenomenon is present in public administration is confirmed by Transparency International’s 2021 survey in BiH, which showed that as many as 45.7 percent of citizens believe that public administration is one of the sectors where corruption is most widespread. The problem could be reduced by the digitization of public administration, i.e. the procedures that are important for the functioning of the economy, but this process is going slowly.
Trading in influence is reduced
PARCO in BIH agrees with this.
“One of the effects of digitization of public administration is precisely anti-corruption. This is an empirical pattern that has been confirmed in the cases of EU countries which are the first users of digitization. The key is transparency, control and reduction of the discretionary influence of civil servant or institutions”, specified the Coordinator for Public Administration Reform in BiH, Dragan Ćuzulan.
He added that a large part of processes and services can be automated and that through the exchange of data between digitized registers, time can be reduced and influence trading and delays can be disabled or reduced.
“Public procurements that are carried out electronically, in addition to the parties’ insight into the entire procedure, for example with the use of a qualified electronic signature, and documents authenticated by it, reduce the need to deliver physical documents, which avoids the misuse from multiple sides,” specified Ćuzulan.
He states that the process of recruitment and admission to the public service can also be improved by, for example, to digitize and automate part of the question generation and assessment of entrance tests.
“A more transparent procedure will also lead to a reduction in nepotism and similar phenomena during employment. This anti-corruption effect is perhaps one of the reasons why the digitization of public administration has not experienced a stronger momentum in BiH, so the fear of anti-corruption effects among certain decision-makers is also an obstacle,” said Ćuzulan.
Digitization of public administration in BIH is stagnating
Although digitization offers numerous opportunities, the public administration in BIH has not used them so far.
“Years ago, international reports indicated the same thing: that there was either stagnation or a setback in the digitalization of public administration,” he said, adding that this also affected user satisfaction with administration services, “so there are more and more people who are dissatisfied, and less and less satisfied users”.
“If we look at the structure of activities that were planned in strategic documents, and which have been implemented so far, it is evident that it is mainly about the introduction of IT tools into internal processes in public administration, which have improved these processes in certain domains to a certain extent. However, the quality of the overall behavior of public administration bodies towards citizens or business entities is still conditioned by a number of limiting factors, and the fact is that the administration does not meet expectations,” said Ćuzulan.
He noted that the Strategic Framework for Public Administration Reform 2018-2022., especially in the field of service provision, put the user and his interests in the focus of public administration, but emphasizes that the fundamental activities that would make this possible have not been implemented.
“There is a strategic context for the digitization of public administration, but there is no systematic and comprehensive approach, which is especially important in the context of the complex organization of public administration in BiH”, he stated, but he could not say whether there is a difference in the progress of digitalization of public administration between RS and the Federation of BIH.
When it comes to the RS, Ćuzulan stated that there is a delay in the “functioning of the monitoring and evaluation system through which the administrative levels collected and delivered information”.
“Unfortunately, for this reason we do not have complete information and we cannot give a precise and complete overview of the situation,” he said and added that in the first quarter of next year they should have a clear picture, that is, that then they plan to publish a new report for RS.
Although the latest data from the field are awaited, Ćuzulan states that there are positive examples. One of them is the introduction of an electronic e-box in the work of the Tax Administration of RS.
“This is a unified access to all electronic services of the Tax Administration. By the way, the establishment of an ‘e-box’ is foreseen in the PAR Action Plan as one of the key building blocks through which citizens could access all electronic services of public administration in a legally secure way, through one channel,” he said.
He added that the same applies to the Federation of BiH and that he will only have an overview of the situation for this administrative level at the beginning of next year. He said that the complex division of responsibilities is evident in this part, which includes municipal, cantonal and entity authorities, and makes the improvement of services more challenging.
“Services need to be optimized beforehand, which is an introduction to the digitalization of services, because digitalization does not give a quality effect if the service is organized primarily according to the administrative aspect and not from the perspective of how the citizen sees a certain life event. Optimizing the process mainly requires changes in legal regulations and organization, which in turn requires clear political support and determination, which is always challenging to secure,” said Ćuzulan.
There is progress in this part of BIH as well, so Ćuzulan says that in the middle of 2022, amendments to the Law on Administrative Procedure were adopted in FBIH, which added previously non-existent provisions on electronic communication and delivery, and that created general legal prerequisites for the improvement of administrative-legal decision-making by administrative bodies.
The brake is a lack of political will
Ćuzulan adds that the digitization of public administration faces numerous obstacles.
“In general, there is a lack of real and consistent political support and determination of all participants in BiH to enter the digitization process,” he said.
He explains that the current activities lack a greater degree of coordination and that there is a partial approach, that is, an attempt to digitize the service only within the framework of one institution.
“However, in order to have a legally valid service in a full transactional profile, the cooperation of several institutions and authorities at different administrative levels is necessary. Such examples only show the potential of digitization that has not been used,” he states.
He adds that a special problem is regulation that is not harmonized and does not follow the requirements of digitization.
Although there is a general framework that is satisfactory, special regulations continue to limit digitization in various ways, which in practice means that individuals must still request and deliver various documents physically.
“The next problem is organizational and the fact that we do not have institutions at all administrative levels with clear responsibilities for the bearer of the digitization process, as well as the departure of personnel,” stated Ćuzulan.
The implementation of digitization is conditioned by the lack of budgetary resources, so this reform depends on donor funds.
In order to speed up this process, Ćuzulan believes that it is necessary to accept all the key implementation documents for the implementation of the Strategy for the Reform of Public Administration and appoint the implementation and supervisory capacities for the coordination of the reform process.
“Specifically, for digitization, it is necessary to start as soon as possible with the establishment of basic building blocks such as electronic identification and presentation, electronic payment, e-box and electronic exchange of documents via the service center of the public administration”, he said.
Digitization is mostly paid for by donors
The research conducted on this topic by the non-governmental sector is also not commendable. In the Report on the Development of Digital Services in the Municipalities and Cities of BiH, which was recently published by the Center for Research and Studies GEA from Banjaluka, it was stated that the lack of an adequate Law on electronic signatures, i.e. electronic identification, is a problem that has a very large impact on the possibilities of digitizing administrative services at the level of local self-government in the sense that it significantly limits the possibilities for improvement in this area.
“Solving this problem would create key prerequisites for the further development of digitization, given that initiated administrative procedures would be completed entirely online,” the report specified.
It was stated that the improvement of digital services in a large number of local self-government units (LGUs) was mainly possible thanks to development projects which are financed by donors.
“The lack of funds in the LGU budget was identified as the main problem when it comes to the development and expansion of the scope of services that could be introduced despite the lack of adequate legal regulations. “Budget constraints affect the ability to procure appropriate software solutions, invest in network infrastructure and computer equipment,” the report stated.
It was also specified that the existing digital services significantly facilitated the provision of services, but mostly did not solve the greatest needs of citizens to complete a certain procedure without going to the LGU premises.
“The incoherence of records also makes it difficult to complete a certain procedure in a short period of time and requires citizens to visit multiple addresses or offices in order to obtain documentation,” the report explained.
A list of priorities which is made
The Chamber of Commerce of the RS is also aware that there is a lot of work to be done in this field in the RS. Digitization is one of the key issues addressed through the proposals of the Program of Economic Reforms of RS for the period 2023-2025 year.
“The digitalization of public administration should be implemented through the harmonization of digitalization of services in all republican and local institutions. This model would lead to the avoidance of partial, imposed and incoherent solutions for the digitization of public administration,” states this document.
In addition, it was stated that it is necessary to develop e-platforms that will enable easier access to public services, reduce the burden on business entities, speed up the provision of public services and reduce costs for business entities when accessing public services.
“Conditions should be created for the use of electronic signatures, electronic documents and electronic business, which would result in cheaper, faster and more efficient administrative procedures, reducing the possibility of misuse, procrastination and corruption,” the document states.
They suggest that it should be possible for all companies to introduce a unique software for resource planning in companies that would be connected to the server of the Tax Administration of RS. They explain that in this way, the Tax Administration would be able to have complete insight into the operations of economic companies and more efficient control of those operations.
“Conditions should be created for the use of electronic services in business, for example, electronic registration and payment of residence tax, e-registration of seasonal employees etc.,” the program states.
The calculation is clear, the digitization of procedures is equal to the reduction of corruption
Employers say that digitization of public administration should be done as quickly as possible, for several reasons. One of them is the reduction of corruption in the system. The Director of the Employers Union of RS, Saša Aćić, says that the calculation is clear – the digitization of procedures equals the reduction of corruption.
“If you reduce the number of unnecessary procedures and parafiscal burdens, you also reduce corruption. In short, if you have a service that an individual, institution or state needs to do for someone and if you don’t have that procedure or financial obligation, it is again equal to reducing corruption”, said Aćić.
He added that employers currently have to deal with around 900 procedures.
“In three years, according to the Program of Economic Reforms of the RS, around 300 procedures will be abolished. This will significantly affect the reduction of obligations that employers have towards entity institutions and local communities, which will reduce opportunities for corrupt practices”, said Aćić.
He explained that by reducing the number of procedures, a normative prerequisite for the implementation of digitization is actually created.
“This cannot be realized until normative assumptions are created”, he said and added that the public administration, which to a certain extent has resistance to digitization, needs to adapt to all of this, but that it is inevitable that this process will be carried out.
“This process must be carried out quickly, because our citizens go to countries where the level of digitization of public services is at a much higher level. Digitization of public affairs and services should certainly be seen as an opportunity and should be seen through the prism of a better quality of life,” he said.
A positive example from the region
The extent to which digitization of public administration can reduce corruption in practice is confirmed by an example from the region. The introduction of electronic registration of seasonal workers in Serbia has reduced the occurrence of grey economy and corruption.
“In Serbia, the registration of seasonal workers is a digitized process and it is one of the reforms that we have successfully implemented. The procedure for registering seasonal workers in agriculture is very simple, which means that employers can register workers through the application in a few seconds, and that process has come to life,” said Violeta Jovanović, executive director of the National Alliance for Local Economic Development NALED.
She explained that the system is located in the Tax Administration and is connected with all other registers pension, social, National Employment Service and Economic Registers Agency.
“This system pulls data from these databases and thus relieves the administrative burden on employers. On the other hand, she explains that before the introduction of this system, the state was at a loss because it did not have data on people who earned money in this way, and therefore no one was liable for tax revenue for them”, she said and added that it is planned that this model extends to other areas, among others, in construction, tourism and hospitality and help in the house.
“This system enables all workers to be visible and thereby reduces the possibility of corruption and the gray economy to a minimum, although it is always possible to bypass the system,” she concluded.