Attorney General and Finance Minister, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum said by the end of next month, they will be rolling out a centralized policy guideline in respect to merit based recruitment and selection in the civil service.
Sayed-Khaiyum made this comment while providing a response in relation to Opposition MP, Jiosefa Dulakiverata's question in Parliament today on what is the progress of the comprehensive review by the World Bank to restructure the civil service.
Sayed-Khaiyum said under the constitution, the appointments in the civil service are carried out through the Permanent Secretaries with the concurrence of the Ministers.
He said in order to ensure that none of the Permanent Secretaries play any funny business, there has to be a criteria for selection and recruitment which must be transparent.
In reaching out to the World Bank, Sayed-Khaiyum revealed that they have setup a structure which is called the civil service reform management unit and Makereta Konrote is the Director of the Unit.
He said the civil service reform cannot be done overnight and some specific issues have been identified.
Sayed-Khaiyum said it has been identified that there are major weaknesses at the interface between the public and the civil service where civil service is often inaccessible, unresponsive and bureaucratic.
He said central agencies do not have sufficient tools and capacity to monitor and motivate delivery of high priority projects and programs.
Meanwhile, Sayed-Khaiyum also revealed this morning that the Australian government has already committed US$3 million for the next three years as technical assistance for the reforms to take place.
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