The draft of the government's medium-term work program, which was open for public debate until March 9, leaves too much room for interpretation when it comes to the goals of individual proposed activities, despite efforts to define certain indicators of success on a general level, the Institute of Alternatives announced ( IA).
They pointed out that their proposals for the improvement of the Government's medium-term work program refer mainly to the strengthening of legal and practical guarantees of employment based on merit, the need for an overall analysis of the current system of inspections, the application of anti-corruption mechanisms in the field of public procurement and legal changes in the field of secret data.
"We especially recognize that certain activities, which were announced non-transparently and without prior analysis, such as the abolition of the Directorate for Inspection Affairs and the amendment of numerous laws with the aim of reorganizing inspection supervision, were not reflected in the Draft Program. We believe that it is necessary to clarify the Government's further plans in relation to to this area, which is not visible from the document, which contains only previously planned changes to the Law on Inspection Supervision, which were submitted to the parliamentary procedure by previous governments. Also, the long-announced Strategy for the fight against corruption is not at all in the draft program, although the Government recently launched the process of educating the National Council for the fight against corruption, among other things, with the aim of preparing this Strategy. 23 and 24. In addition to this general overview, in our comments we indicated the need for amendments to the Labor Law, which would go beyond the currently planned harmonization with directives and EU standards, with the aim of responding to the priority challenges of establishing a merit-based employment system in the public sector. Among other things, the changes should establish a rule of public advertising before starting employment in entry-level positions in all segments of the public sector; prescribe the duration of public advertisements for employment in the public sector of at least 15 days; to enable persons seeking employment in the public sector to initiate a procedure, i.e. a dispute if they believe that their rights have been violated without the restrictions that currently exist in the Labor Law and which refer only to certain prohibited behaviors," the IA press release states.
They said that in relation to the planned changes to the Law on Civil Servants and State Employees, they believe that their scope should be clarified and supplemented.
"Although this Law is the subject of continuous criticism from both the European Commission and the non-governmental sector, the draft program does not contain clear reasons or clarify the planned scope of changes, which are foreseen until the fourth quarter of 2024. The working group, of which the representative of the Institute of Alternatives is a part, was formed more than a year ago, but the members were told that the improvement of regulations in this area will be worked on gradually, by first making urgent changes, which the European Commission insists on, in terms of tightening the conditions for employment, and that later, broader changes will be made, which will entail the introduction of a competence framework for all levels of the civil service, and other, more demanding changes. However, the current explanation of the activity does not recognize this gradualism, and therefore, confuses the Government's approach to this important area. Due to the importance of provide clear guidelines for further normative activity in this area, we have made concrete proposals, which are based on previously detailed analyzes and assessment of the risk of corruption during employment in the public sector," they added.
They emphasized that they proposed to the Government to conduct an analysis of the effectiveness of inspections within the ministries and the Directorate for Inspection Affairs, according to the same parameters.
"This is the only way to approach the possible reorganization of inspections in an argumentative way. Since the last comprehensive reform of inspections in 2011, the government has tried several times to assess the effect of the current model, but with an approach that was accompanied by various methodological flaws, with the aim of justifying the current balance of forces and the interest of certain ministries in the return of inspections under their auspices. Bearing in mind that according to the latest report on public procurement, in order to strengthen anti-corruption tools in the field of public procurement planned connection of the e-procurement system with the electronic system of the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption, we believe that it is important for the Government to prepare information on how far that process has come and what are the necessary prerequisites in order to connect the said systems," the announcement reads.
"We also recalled the earlier recommendation that, through the Law on Confidentiality of Data, the authorities are obliged to prepare and publish information on the number of documents, that is, information marked with a degree of secrecy in a certain period of time," it concludes.
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