Government to regulate recruitment, procurement of state entities

The government will be issuing directives to parastatal entities to regulate the recruitment and remuneration of their employees and the procurement of fixed assets, services, consultancies, contracts and administrative expenses, the House Public Accounts Committee has been told.

Rita Schembri, head of the Financial Management Monitoring Unit pointed out that a bill amending the Financial Administration and Audit Act was on Parliament's agenda and the directives would be issued following its enactment.

Answering questions on the public service benchmarking initiative carried out by the Office of the Prime Minister and the Finance Ministry, Ms Schembri explained that her unit was focusing on the expenditure of government bodies. These bodies, she said, were autonomous and decisions were taken by their boards. The government, however, wanted to see a more homogeneous relationship between the public service and entities in which it had 51 per cent or more ownership. It had thus also set up a Collective Bargaining Unit to bring working conditions and salaries within a level playing field.

Saviour Gauci, director-general at the Ministry of Finance, referred to Monday's debate in Parliament when Investments Minister Austin Gatt said that for the public sector to recruit the best persons for top management positions, salaries had to be commensurate to their responsibilities. He pointed out that public sector employees were better paid than those in the civil service because the latter enjoyed security of tenure.

PAC chairman Charles Mangion said that focusing solely on expenditure would not produce much. Customer care was still lacking and there were still instances of people phoning customer care designated numbers but nobody answered.

A culture change was needed. He could not understand why the benchmarking exercise was not carried out with regard to the public entities. These also received public funds and no chairman should be allowed to state that his entity was autonomous.

Joe Izzo, permanent secretary at the Office of the Prime Minister, maintained that permanent secretaries must also be held responsible for the entities falling within their ministry. There were 54 such entities under 13 ministries.

Dr Mangion pointed out that over-manning was still rampant and this was the main reason why government expenditure was still not manageable and had grown faster than GDP. Constituted bodies and the public at large were still complaining of bureaucracy. This was killing private initiative.

Mr Izzo said the number of government employees, including those in the public sector, had declined, even though a number of public entities had been set up.

Thirty employees who were seconded to the new public-private agricultural setup were so unhappy that they quit their jobs. Robert Arrigo (PN) asked whether they had left because finally they were being asked to do their duty.

Helena Dalli (MLP) said that it had taken three days for the WSC to repair a burst water pipe in her street.

Mr Gauci maintained that the those who did not take action should be sacked; perhaps others would then take the hint.

Mr Izzo said that there were directors, directors-general and even a permanent secretary who had been removed because they did not deliver. A quality service 'champion' had been identified in every ministry and benchmarking was being done horizontally. The Libraries Department, he said, had become so efficient that it even won overseas awards.

Dr Mangion said government action to bring more efficiency within its various sectors was still out of focus with one unit targeting public bodies and the other the public service. There was no correlation between them.

Mr Izzo said that a circular was issued last week regulating employment by the OPM. Before a vacant post was filled a thorough search for suitable people had to be made within the public service. Only when no suitable person was identified could the ETC be contacted for outside recruitment.

This circular did not address outsourcing and consultancies and hence, the need to amend the law.