Public Administration Reform, in addition to the Reform of the Payment System and Support to Local Self-Governments, will be one of the priorities of the Ministry’s work in this mandate, said Lady Minister Obradović at a Working Online-Meeting with SIGMA organization representatives.
She welcomed the cooperation between Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-Government and SIGMA so far, and expressed the expectation that the future cooperation will be successful and with more results. Obradović pointed out that she would try to achieve progress in two areas of Public Administration Reform, during the limited time of mandate of this Government, in which no progress has been made so far, namely reduction of the number of civil servants in the office, who have the status of Acting Officials, and in harmonization of laws with the Law on General Administrative Procedure.
„I can promise that, as the Line Minister, I will try to decrease the number of officials in the acting function, and constantly remind and explain why it is not good to have a lot of people for a long time in the acting status, especially today when we strive and go towards the modernization and professionalization of public administration”, said Minister Obradović.
Also, the Lady Minister pointed out that SIGMA is a strong support to the Ministry, and added that more needs to be done to make the joint work and results achieved in the process of Public Administration Reform more visible to the public.
Gregor Virant, Head of the SIGMA Program, which is a Joint Program of the OSCE and the EU, with a mandate to support EU Candidate Countries, assessed the cooperation with Serbia as excellent and intensive. He pointed out that Serbia has achieved excellent results in the field of Public Administration Reform, especially in terms of service provision and digitalization process. Virant pointed out that he believes that in areas where it is necessary to make progress, it is possible to find a model that would meet the principles of competence, expertise and trust.
It was assessed that the cooperation will continue in the same direction, with additional efforts of all key actors in the process of Public Administration Reform, especially in the context of COVID pandemic, and SIGMA announced that next year it will conduct a regular reporting process, which should provide a picture of the progress made and of the future initiatives.