Novalić with World Bank representatives: Disparity between salaries in public and real sectors

Public administration reform was the central topic of today's meeting between the Prime Minister of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina Fadil Novalić and the World Bank (WB) team, led by the head of the Office of this international institution for Bosnia and Herzegovina Tatiana Proskuryakova, it was announced from the Government of the FBiH, reports the Patria news agency.

When it comes to public administration in the Federation of BiH, Prime Minister Novalić said, there are noticeable disparities between the number of employees in the civil service relative to the population, and between salaries in public administration and salaries in the real sector. In addition, the inefficiency of public administration is evident.

The introduction of a moratorium on employment in public administration alone last year brought savings of 13,600,000 KM at the level of the Federation of BiH. It should be noted that, at the federal level, 14.6 percent of funds are allocated from the Budget for public administration. Cantons allocate 69 percent for these purposes, and municipalities 12 percent of their budget funds.

Therefore, if savings proportional to those achieved by the FBiH Government were realized at other levels, one could speak of at least one hundred million KM saved in 2015.

On the other hand, the measures of the Federal Government to encourage employment are already yielding good initial results. Thus, in the last ten days alone, about 5,000 applications for the use of employment incentives have been submitted to the Employment Bureau, said the federal prime minister.

World Bank experts will continue to collect indicators relevant for analyzing the situation in public administration in the coming days. This will serve as a starting point for defining possible directions of reform in this area, the Government statement said.