Administrative reforms require political will

Kashi Raj Dahal

Chair, High-Powered Administration Reform and Monitoring Committee

With the implementation of the federal system, reforms in public administration and integration of the civil servants are in process. The High-powered Administration Reform and Monitoring Committee, led by Kashi Raj Dahal, chairman of the Administrative Court, is working to structure the civil service for the federal, provincial and local governments. Modnath Dhakal of The Rising Nepal talked to Dahal about the administrative reforms, integration of civil servants, politicisation of the civil service and the recently announced voluntary retirement system for the government staff. Excerpts:

Why have administrative reforms become necessary at this hour?

Nepal has entered the federal democratic political system, and the Constitution has divided the State power into the federal, provincial and local levels. The primary task, conducting the elections at all levels, has been accomplished, and all political units have got complete shape, and the date for the National Assembly has also been announced. To drive the governments at all the levels, support the governments in implementing the federal and local laws and policies as well as to provide prompt services to the people, the country needs a competent and dynamic administrative mechanism. Creation of political institutions alone will not serve the political change, a multi-talented civil service should be created simultaneously. Therefore, the restructuring of the governance system is needed. The Constitution has envisioned a neutral, service-oriented, corruption-free and accessible administration in the federal system.

What is the High-powered Administration Reform and Monitoring Committee doing now?

Article 302 of the Constitution clearly states that the present civil servants should be integrated into the federal, provincial and local levels, and a new legal instrument should be created for this. The Civil Servants Integration Act 2017 has already been endorsed by the parliament. It says that the employees of three service areas – civil, health and parliament – should be integrated into the three levels of the government. According to the Act, if a government employee is above the age of 50 and has completed 20 years in service, he/she should be offered voluntary retirement with allowance equal to the salary of seven years. The government is implementing it, and a notice has been published for the same.

Our committee has proposed 15 ministries at the centre and seven in each of the provinces. But the number of divisions, sections and departments under those ministries and the number of staff required are yet to be determined. In order to find out the need, an organisational management (O & M) survey will be carried out soon. The Civil Servants Integration By-laws are awaiting approval at the Council of Ministers, and following their ratification, an O & M Committee will be formed, which will conduct a study about the number of employees and organisational structures needed at the central, provincial and local levels.

We have already suggested the number of ministries and their structures and the departments that need to be dissolved. A bill pertaining to the federal, provincial and local civil service act as well as a national policy on civil service has been created. The committee has also assessed the present status of civil service and inter-governmental relationship among the federal, provincial and local level. The committee has submitted its interim reports to the government and is preparing to submit the final report soon.

How do you assess the progress in managing human resource under federalism?

We have collected the details of all the 82,000 government employees, and government staff in the municipalities and rural municipalities have already been integrated. Only the civil servants are to be integrated. Immediately after the approval of the bylaws and assessment of the positions and quotas, integration of the civil servants will begin. It should have been completed by now, but the elections delayed the process by a couple of months. The next government must expedite the integration process in order to make the three levels of government functional.

What would be the cost of the additional human resource needed to implement three-tier federalism?

The committee has only decided on integrating the government employees, and the actual cost and resources needed for the process are yet to be estimated. Another assessment will be conducted after the integration to find out the shortage of human resource, and the vacant positions will be filled up as per the need. The local governments can also decide if they need extra human resources, but the respective rural and municipal council should approve the decision and send it to the office of the Public Service Commission in the respective provinces to fill up the vacant positions. So the respective local and provincial governments should review the status of the human resources available and decide if they need more. But the local governments should have enough resources to manage the additional human resources. As the number of ministries, departments and district offices will go down substantially, most of the human resources will be managed by the present employees, and only a small additional workforce will be required.

Your earlier report on administrative reforms and monitoring had suggested that to address the concerns of the citizens, the country's administration structure and its working style should be changed or overhauled.

The 700-page report submitted to the government by the erstwhile High Level Administration Reform Suggestion Committee said that the public administration was not people-oriented, and there was a huge mismatch of jobs as the offices having a high workload had less staff and offices with a low workload had more staff. Postings were done haphazardly without a proper need assessment. Corruption is increasing, civil servants are self-centred and continuously seek opportunities to go on foreign trips. The public service is highly politicised, and there has been continuous political intervention. Impunity has increased while accountability and loyalty to the state are on the wane.

The committee has recommended hiring dynamic staff and increasing the integrity of the office and department heads as this will lower corruption by 80 per cent. Work performance assessment should be done by the clients and public, performance contract should be signed with every employee, and promotion and transfers should be as per the performance, and these should be predictable. Monitoring and evaluation should be effective, and reward and punishment should be based on it.

It has been suggested that 75 per cent of the 83,200 civil servants be deployed in the provincial and local levels, but the government is offering voluntary retirement to those who don't want to join the provincial or local government. Don't you think that this a wrong decision and misuse of resources at the same time?

There have been two primary concerns regarding voluntary retirement. First, it will create a dearth of experienced and skilled civil servants, and second, it will create pressure on the state coffers. But the legal provisions clearly say that only employees over 50 years of age and 20 years in government service should be offered an alternative. I think that any civil servant who is not up to date with technology and the new federal system, is less smart and reluctant to go to the remote areas should be given an opportunity to go home with some benefit package. It’s yet to see how many civil servants will opt for the voluntary retirement, but as per our primary estimate, about 10,000 of them will prefer to leave the service. If you consider the parameter of 50 years of age and 20 years of service, the number will be very small. And the government is not sending all of its employees home, those who are interested to serve the nation can stay. The country needs dynamic employees to work in the new technological and political environment, so the voluntary retirement scheme is being implemented to open the doors for the multi-talented youth in the service.

What should be done to end the politicisation of the civil service?

A good thing is that the high political leadership has also realised that there has been unnecessary political interference in the civil service and the politicisation should be discouraged. The civil service should be more regulated in order to make it more professional. Similarly, there should be a single trade union, and social and collective dialogue should be promoted. The political leadership should be committed not to promote politics in the civil service and also not protect those who disturb the service with unnecessary political demands. These elements should be incorporated in the laws in the future.

It's been said that the political leadership is corrupt and lacks vision, and doesn't initiate any reforms in the administration.

Political will is needed for administrative reforms. The biggest problem in our country is the lack of good governance. Therefore, the political leaders should have commitment, dedication and an action plan to implement reforms. So far what we have seen is that the leaders have always paid lip service to administrative reforms, but no one tried to purify it and make it professional. It’s already late to reform the public service system. Therefore, good governance should be the top priority of the new government. If the governance is reformed and becomes transparent, it will have a positive impact on the economy and development of the country. I am hopeful that political stability will support the reform process in this sector.

What about enhancing the motivation level of the employees and making the decision-making process faster?

We have legal instruments, such as the Good Governance Act, Right to Information Act, Consumer Act and Corruption Control Act to make the public administration more transparent, efficient, responsible and accountable. Performance contract with the respective project chiefs and department heads is one method to make the decision-making process faster. Responsibilities of the political leadership, chiefs of organisations and chiefs of projects should be clearly stated, and, as I stated above, their performance should be monitored periodically. If an eligible and competent employee is promoted and offered better facilities, it will motivate his fellow staff. Only then will the civil servants be result-oriented.

Almost all the local units do not have sufficient resources to manage their budgetary needs and are largely dependent on the federal government. Can we believe that federalism will achieve its true goal in such a situation?

Federalism in itself is an expensive political system and will function well with justified distribution of resources. All the local bodies are not equal in terms of resources. The National Natural Resources and Fiscal Commission will assess the status of resources in every province and the local bodies will recommend the way to distribute the resources. It should be noted that it will take a couple of years to make the federal system fully functional. 

Published in The Rising Nepal on 5 February 2018.