It is a huge undertaking,
but only those who believe it is marvelous and performing well — immediate
beneficiaries — will want to wait forever to reform the public sector. While
there are some exceptions, like the Central Bank, Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
Ministry of Interior, and Ministry of Finance, the overall level of performance
in many sectors, such as education, health, transportation, environment, local
councils, public works/maintenance, energy, agriculture, water management, cultural
reform, youth education and tourism infrastructure, leaves a lot to be desired.
اضافة اعلان
Because of this
weakness, Jordan’s position in many international indices has been falling — more
recent in the knowledge index — and this should not be allowed. These
shortfalls have structural, more than cultural, causes that can and must be
addressed.
At structural level, while keeping
the sight on the role of the state as an “enabler”, it is logical to set a
target to make the size of the public sector similar, not necessarily
identical, to its size in the economy as an objective measure, or one of many.
Therefore, there is need of a scheme prescribing the number of employees needed
by public sector institutions, and in what professions and skillsets. This
should be accompanied by a plan for a proper exit for redundant employees (overemployment),
which would entail reskilling and upskilling programs along with proper
evaluation of skills and areas of improvement, that would enable them to,
perhaps, join the private sector, which needs more space and fewer obstacles to
grow to absorb more employees.
It is surprising to realize that many
institutions have employees without a written job description. How can one
develop proper evaluation KPIs without a benchmark?
A comprehensive program across all government
institutions requires linking incentives and retribution to performance only, and
that ought to be based on scientific measurements of institutions’ performance.
As part of this effort, the Civil Service Bureau must be overhauled to maximize
competition based on skills, digitize
government delivery, and root out the phenomenon of hiring “ghost employees” (see Ministry of Water fiasco).
The political,
economic and financial costs associated with the existing state of affairs in
the public sector are too expensive to ignore. The longer its reform is delayed
the more expensive and difficult it will be to fix. Although modern bureaucracy
must be impersonal and it should operate like a machine, investors, who are the
best barometer to measure practical public sector performance in real time, have
been complaining about slow, employee-driven, procedures, unnecessary lengthy
processes, inefficiency, irresponsibility, intentional delays and arbitrary
interpretation of legislations, among many other complaints.
Those investors
and their projects are badly needed for the economy to grow and to contribute
to the reduction of the worrying unemployment problem. Unfortunately, they have
been moving out of the country in droves, either for good or to branch out in
new markets when they are badly needed here for economic and political reasons.
Their departure negatively affects the reputation of the country and sends all
the wrong messages to local and international investors.
The civilian
sector costs the treasury 33 percent of the domestic revenue, which equals 45
percent of the tax revenue, according to the 2021 budget. These shares are not
expected to go down in the next few years if things continue to go on as they
are.
From a cost-benefit
analysis perspective, the sector is not delivering the quality services it is
paid to deliver. Therefore, principles good governance ought to be applied to
improve performance.
We do not have
to go far to see why the public security sector which costs the treasury 18
percent of the domestic revenue, which equals 24 per cent of the tax revenue,
is doing a good job while the too expensive civilian sector is not.
The security
sector performance has been measured against the level of people satisfaction
with safety, security and crime rates over the years. By the same yardstick,
the civilian public sector is lagging behind significantly.
Dr Fares
Braizat, a former minister of youth, is currently the chairman of the
Amman-based NAMA Strategic Intelligence Solutions and Cluster, where he directs
public policy-related projects. He was appointed by His Majesty as a member of
the Royal Committee to Modernize the Political System where he served on the
Election Law subcommittee.
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