State Coordinator for Public Administration Reform Dragan Ćuzulan, Deputy Coordinator Darko Kasap, Head of the Operational Unit in the Public Administration Reform Coordinator’s Office Nedžib Delić, Expert Advisor for Public Administration Reform Mubera Begić, Senior Expert Associates for Legal Affairs Ranka Papović and Nikolina Knežević attended the conference entitled “Two decades of public administration reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina – (un)learned lessons”
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 the money from the budget is not spent in the right way. The lack of trust was also influenced by the fact that more and more citizens see corruption in public administration, where almost four fifths of the respondents (78.6%) believe that they get 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 the implementation of measures. A collection of works 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 in particular 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 completed certain preparatory documents, a Common platform for action, and we expect the Coordination Committee, as a political body, to meet and give exact guidelines in which direction the reform of public administration should go,” says Dragan Ćuzulan, state coordinator for public administration reform.
“We have action and strategic plans, implementation documents, but that is still not enough to produce more visible results. There is also a lack of financial resources and, unfortunately, we still have a blocked public administration reform fund, while local governments do not have enough financial resources for reform projects. I would say that a more visible support from the European Union is expected here, but, on the other hand, also the fulfillment of the necessary conditions when it comes to the local authorities”, concludes Ćuzulan.
He says that the in procedure is to form Supervisory teams, and it is an implementation body for public administration reform that should perform very important tasks, that is, revising the action plan and directing it towards digitalization, as one of the priority requirements for a more visible public administration reform in the following period.
Ćuzulan emphasized the need for the authorities at all levels to devote themselves more to the reform of public administration and for decision-makers to make the same in shorter terms, because too much time is wasted on harmonizing sometimes trivial issues that are not essential for the reform itself.
“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 the high level of corruption is maintained on the trust of citizens”, said Srđan Blagovčanin, chairman of the TI BiH Board of Directors.
This reform is one of the key for the continuation of the process of European integration, 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 to the EU accession process. When this process started, significant steps were taken, but this process has stalled in recent years”, stated 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 to do in order for BiH to have a public administration that is professional,” said Deputy Head of the EU Delegation Adebayo Babajide.
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.