How do we improve our Public Service?

Island-Chic — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 09:36:00 +0000

Usually stagnation is bad and change is good. However, human nature almost by default resists change when comfortable for too long with a particular way of doing things. Perhaps the Maldivian government is a good example.

It was a huge achievement for the Maldivian Democratic Party and its supporting parties to instigate a change in our system of governance after 30 of having the same President. As soon as in power, the new president has started a comprehensive overhaul of the government and public service. A major step in this process is the downsizing of our so-called ‘heavy’ government.

Government ministries have been reduced in number by eliminating a total of 5 ministries and combining the works of these Ministries to others. Thought this in principle is a positive step towards a modern government, it does not come with draw backs, especially if government fails to address the people affected by such a change.

I just read a report on our Daily News Paper, Haveeru Online, regarding the culture of lack of motivation now prevalent among the staff ‘stranded’ by this act of downsizing without proper measures taken to utilize them fully within the system. Staff in some of the eliminated ministries still sitting in their old buildings, now with an authority that sits in a different building, with basically no responsibilities, no work to be done etc. can be quite disheartening. Even in the case of physical transfer, no measures taken for adjustments into the new environment, new line of work or responsibilities etc. can even de-motivate staffs who were previously high performers.

For this reason, I say no policy must be implemented without proper analysis of its impacts on the stakeholders and its environment. No change is usually good unless these aspects are looked into before the policy is implemented and remedial measures taken in cases of possible failure. Hence this is a time for quick action by the new government to do damage control and come up with a plan to motivate the de-motivated. This is how they can do it.

1. Comprehensive mandates for the 14 government ministries must be compiled and made public as soon as possible

2. Each ministry must be developed with a mission statement and a vision of how a the particular mandate of the Ministry is to be fulfilled and towards which goals

3. Confusion in names, mandates, services rendered etc and outdated information available on the web must be streamlines with well developed information channels. Each ministry must develop its websites with clearly indicated information about the ministry, its departments, the responsibilities undertaken by the ministry etc.

4. To maximize the productivity of the human resources available within the public service, ministries must be reshuffled according to people’s area of expertise and academic backgrounds.

5. New staff must be only recruited to the public service if there are no staff available for rotation from other ministries or departments, whose utility could be higher by a transfer. For e.g. if Mohamed has a degree in public finance and is a director at the environment research center (who basically is frustrated that he makes no use of his intellect in the job he’s doing currently), he must be moved to the Finance Ministry as soon as the opportunity arise rather than recruiting a new staff to the Finance Ministry.

6. Though public service is not operated as a profit making business, there has to be Key Performance Indicators which can show the level of performance of a particular Department. These KPI’s should be the basis of a department’s performance and all staff must work towards achieving highest productivity in terms of efficiency of carrying out their tasks.

7. Efficiency does not come from having excess human resources, it comes from being able to generate productivity with as less human resources as possible.

8. There has to be a clear line of command within all ministries with no duplication of channels of command or responsibilities as to not confuse the lower level staff. If there are two bosses who order around one secretary, the poor guy is never going to get any work done as he will spend half of his day trying to balance the work for both bosses and not to piss any of them.

9. There must be harmony developed under each ministry among all its departments. The budget section is not an entity unto itself and neither the administrative department or the corporate department etc. All the departments are working for a common goal of the Ministry which in turn is working for the collective good of the nation. So the public service’s responsibilities are only a means to an end and not an end in itself.

10. As I have previously written, promotion and personal progress of public servants must be based strictly on meritocracy.

These are only a few among the many steps we need to take in order to improve our public service which has been lagging in its performance for quite some time now. This is the time for change. The government must realize the importance of this matter and act swiftly before our public service charge into looming disaster!

What we need is a system of meritocracy

Island-Chic — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 19:04:00 +0000

Cronyism, nepotism and favoritism are buzz words (literally or otherwise) within various forums involving Maldivian government employees. We have long suffered a system which has somewhat ignored the elements of meritocracy as determinants of a public servant’s path towards success.

In an ideal democracy backed with an efficient bureaucracy (a perfect example is the Singapore public service), meritocracy is the key factor which determines the progress of a government employee.

“Meritocracy is a system of a government or another organization wherein appointments are made and responsibilities are given based on demonstrated talent and ability (merit), rather than by wealth (plutocracy), family connections (nepotism), class privilege (oligarchy), cronyism, popularity (as in democracy) or other historical determinants of social position and political power. In a meritocracy, society rewards (by wealth, position, and social status) those who demonstrated talent and competence, demonstrated through past actions or by competition”.

Anyone who has seen anything within the Maldivian administration must have noticed the lack of attention to meritocracy and the excessive abuse of all else mentioned above. We have long seen a system where appointments and promotions are based on connections, relationship with people on the top, mere presence within the system (years of service whether productive or otherwise), flattery and ‘sucking up’ to the big bosses. This I’d say is the root cause of an inefficacious civil service today.

Maldivians on average are relatively bright, enthusiastic and meticulous in their work. We have a pretty young civil service with sufficient education to back it up. Yet, we suffer from the inadequacies and friction within the system which de-motivate the very talented within the system due to factors mentioned in the beginning.

We now have a new government, a new constitution, a new civil service, a new administration and a new structure. It is time that we adopt a new policy to recognise and reward talent and nurture them. It is time that we motivate the enthusiasts and penalise or revitalise the inefficient and unproductive.

The first step towards the adoption of a system of meritocracy is to overhaul the long established methods for recruitment, appointment and promotions. We need an effective performance appraisal system within each government organisation which periodically reviews the performance of staff in each department. We need a mission and a vision for each department which must align with the main goal of the organisation. We need to eliminate inefficient staff and reinforce support for the ‘dragging feet’ to push them forward. We need to put aside the selfish use of one’s position and power to push forward an agenda which is does not have the best interest of the citizenry at heart. We need to make that painful switch to a system of meritocracy.

Island Chic's Babble» government

How do we improve our Public Service?

What we need is a system of meritocracy