By: Nevena Šarenac
In hotel “Europe’ in Sarajevo a conference was organized to mark the beginning of a project “Development of Central Government Authorities in BiH”, financed by the European Union for 900.000 euros.
The project was launched in January 2013 and will last for 24 months, and the four main beneficiriaes of the project are the General Secretariat of the BiH Council of Ministers, FBIH government, RS government and the government of the Brčko District.
The Head of the Operations Section for Justice and Home Affairs and Reform of Public Administration in the EU Delegation in BiH Severin Strohal thinks that this is a very important project because it is based on strengthening and developing public policy, and therefore it is very important for citizens of BiH to get a system of health care and education that would be designed, coherent and consistent.
The second important goal for the contribution of this project is based on the process of EU integration.
“In this process in BiH, as well as in other countries that have entered these processes, they had to adopt legislation, by-laws and other regulations of the EU. In this process, it is necessary at certain stages of certain parts of the law or regulations to adopt and modify’’, said Strohal in a statement to the media.
According to him, at a time of austerity measures, which were introduced everywhere in Europe and in the world due to the economic situation, it is important to have good policies that will use the money of taxpayers in the best way possible.
“To achieve this, it is necessary to establish better coordination between different state bodies, or different levels of government’’, said the Head of the Operations Section for Justice and Home Affairs and Public Administration Reform in the EU Delegation to BiH.
He added that part of this project is to achieve the development of more efficient and rational policies, as well as the training of personnel and government officials that would gain new skills and knowledge.
“From this project we expect that, from our full participation, to improve procedures around the preparation of plans, work programs and monitoring the execution of these plans, which really has a need for such improvement’’, announced the General Secretary of the Council of Ministers of BIH Zvonimir Kutleša.
It is expected to develop the capacity for coordination and with other general secretariats of the entity governments and the Brčko District, as well as with other BiH institutions, and to improve the procedures of policy making at the level of BIH, cooperation with Parliament and with other BiH institutions.
“We expect that we will improve on this issues, or to train our civil servants to be more efficient at their jobs, and which would be reflected in our legislation that we are bringing to the Council of Ministers’’, said Kutleša.
The coordinator for reform of public administration Semiha Borovac said that this is one of the most important projects from the area of reform of public administration when it comes to strategic planning, coordination and development, because it combines the general secretariats at all four administrative levels.
“Our governments have, which is very important, agreed to implement organizational and other functional changes tied to the general secretariat on the same model. Due to this, it is very important that the general secretariat of the governments at all four administrative levels become key places where the agenda of the government will be controlled and which is agreed with the ministries, so there will be better planned polices, monitoring of the execution of policies, at government and ministerial level, and there will be a good connection between the executive and legislative authorities’’, explained Borovac.
The Secretary of the Federal government Edita Kalajdžić thaked the EU for the support that it lends to central authorities, more specifically the General Secretariat governments and the Council of Ministers.
“From the beginning, we expect that conditions would be created for the continuation of the establishment of organizational and technical conditions for efficient work of professional services that are operated directly by the government, and who with their work significantly contribute to efficiency and effectiveness of the work of the governments’’, added Kalajdžić.
The Secretary of the government of Brčko Distrikt Davor Šolaja said that their goal is to form joint cooperation with other secretariats, and to ‘’join the EU through reform processes that would certainly contribute to an accelerated entry to the EU”.
The project “Development of Central Authorities of the BiH Government” presents the continuation of reform initiatives tied to the process of strengthening central governmental bodies at all levels that have been lasting since 2008.
