$41million saved from review
The Prime Minister Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama, who is also the Minister for the Public Service Commission, today announced that major changes in the civil service would take place in coming months as it continues to pursue reforms and improve efficiencies in service delivery.
The review identifies five large ministries namely the Health, Education, and Works, Transport & Public Utilities ministry and the Departments of Agriculture and Fisheries and Forests and the scope of their work and function in and as far as service deliveries are concerned.
The Prime Minister said these were the targets of the first phase of the review because they were all front line service provider ministries and accounted for 68 per cent of staff in the civil service and 46 per cent of operating expenditure in government’s National Budget. He said that major gains could be achieved by refocusing Government’s reform efforts in these five larger ministries in the first instance.
Commodore Bainimarama said that there would be major changes in the organisational structure, core functional responsibilities and the manner in which they interface with the public in terms of service delivery. He added that Government would focus its role on the formulation and implementation of policies, ensuring the existence of a conducive regulatory framework, monitoring and compliance and promoting and safeguarding the interests of ordinary members of the public. This means work undertaken by these ministries will be reorganised, outsourced or corporatized as the case maybe.
Commodore Bainimarama has also directed the PSC to coordinate and oversee the implementation of the various findings and recommendations of this review. He said those recommendations and findings which had policies and financial implications would be brought for consideration for Cabinet following due analysis and consultations with the line ministries.
“The others which are straight forward will be implemented under my executive authority and oversight as minister responsible for public service,” the Prime Minister said.
The timeframe for implementation of findings and recommendations is within the context of Fiji’s Roadmap for Democracy and Sustainable Socio-Economic Development and he has directed the PSC to speed up the implementation timeline to achieve desired results in the shortest timeframe.
Additionally, major economic benefits will be derived from the corporatization and outsourcing of some of the functions of the larger ministries because the private sector now has the capabilities to deliver such services on a much more competitive and efficient basis.
The functional review exercise covering the five ministries was announced as an initiative in the 2011 National Budget.
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