TI: FBiH Government's Decree Will Not Eliminate Corruption Risks in Employment

(Patria) - The Government of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina has adopted a Decree on the procedure for employment in the public sector in FBiH (Decree) with the aim of providing for a public competition procedure in employment, modeled after civil service. Transparency International in BiH (TI BiH) has previously supported the FBiH Government's efforts to regulate employment practices throughout the public sector in order to enable the selection of the best candidates and put an end to party-based and other forms of corrupt employment.

"However, the Decree, according to TI BiH's opinion, will not eliminate corruption risks, nor will it ensure the selection of the most qualified candidates in a transparent procedure. The Federal Government did not adopt TI BiH's proposals to give priority to written testing in the selection process, and the suggestion to provide for the mandatory selection of the top-ranked candidate was also rejected. The adopted regulation thus contains serious shortcomings in terms of eliminating the most common corruption risks, thereby revealing the true intentions of the FBiH Government, which is clearly only declaratively committed to fighting corruption.

TI BiH did participate in the early consultation processes regarding the drafting of the Decree, and Government representatives have often cited this in public, but we note that TI BiH did not have access to the final version of the document, which was presented to us only after its adoption. With such conduct, the FBiH Government has also shown that there are no serious intentions to involve civil society in the creation of public policies and regulations," stated Transparency International.