CCI street action: Citizens in BiH need fair public competitions

The street action "Fair Public Competitions - Equal Opportunity for Everyone", organized by the Centers for Civil Initiatives (CCI) as part of the campaign "Competent, Not Connected...", aimed at depoliticizing and de-party appointments and employment in the public sector in BiH, was held today in Tuzla, reports NAP.

As part of the street action, citizens had the opportunity to sign a petition demanding fair employment in civil service, healthcare, education, public enterprises, etc.

Personal abilities, knowledge, experience, and integrity of candidates must be the decisive factor in appointments and employment in the public sector. Not party or family connections.

Also, on this occasion, citizens were able to learn more about the results of the monitoring of appointments and employment in the public sector in BiH through the prepared printed material.

- Current regulations almost entirely fail to protect the principles of independent, objective, and professional verification, as well as the appointment and employment of the best candidates in public administration. The issue of conducting public competitions remains one of the critical points in the employment process in public administration. In the absence of clearly defined procedures and criteria for appointments and employment within public administration, i.e., public institutions, enterprises, and other public entities, all public resources easily become prey to the executive power.

This situation suits the ruling structure, as no significant change in the regulations governing this area occurred during 2016, or it was done very poorly, as in the case of Tuzla Canton, where party cadres remained prioritized in appointments and employment in the public sector under the new legal solution.

We remind you that the Government of TK adopted the proposal for the Law on Civil Service of TK, according to which the head of a civil service body must choose the first person from the list of candidates applying for a position in the civil service. However, at the session of the TK Assembly during the adoption of the law, the SDA Club submitted an amendment according to which the head can choose anyone from the list of candidates, and this amendment was adopted. In this way, one of the fundamental provisions of the Law, which is the selection of the best-ranked candidates when hiring for civil service, was drastically changed - stated Slaven Divčić, from CCI.

CCI's monitoring findings show that the employment process is generally very non-transparent.

Viewed through 4 criteria: that all competitions are published on the websites of the employing bodies, that they are published in daily newspapers, that all evaluation criteria for the competition are available to candidates, and that the composition of the commissions is announced when the competition is announced, it was concluded that the current transparency index of the employment process is only 32, on a scale of 0 to 100.

Due to all of the above, the CCI states, it is necessary to amend or adopt new Laws on Civil/Public Service at all levels as soon as possible in accordance with the SIGMA principles of public administration reform, and to regulate the competition procedure in more detail to ensure that all candidates have equal opportunities when applying for jobs, and that the best candidates among them get jobs in public administration.

In the coming weeks, street actions will be organized in Bijeljina, Banja Luka, Bihać, Sarajevo, and Mostar.

All citizens who wish to support this campaign can sign the petition electronically on the platform www.sposobnimanepodobnim.ba or do so via the Facebook page #Sposobnim, a ne podobnim, by sharing their views, stories, or photos expressing their resistance to this discriminatory way of controlling social wealth, public money, and jobs by a connected minority.