DE-POLITICIZATION AND MERITOCRACY AS THE AXIOMS OF THE PUBLIC SECTOR REFORM

Abstract

Good governance rests on independence, competence and integrity of public administration and its employees. The concept of good governance wants public administration to improve its work to become responsible, open and transparent, to encourage the utilization of inclusive mechanisms and to promote rule of law, to use its resources efficiently and effectively and to render good quality public services.

Every developed state pays considerable attention to recruitment in public administration and other public institutions and companies. For achieving best possible results, the focus is on ensuring the highest degree of legality, competitiveness and equal opportunities, that is, meritocracy as the principle.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, there are more than 165,000 individuals employed in the public service sector or public administration. Moreover, there are additional almost 20,000 managerial positions in the public administration that officially are non-political, however, there are serious attempts to take control over them and make them political i.e. election prey. Politicisation, recruitment and appointments to managerial and all other positions in the public sector along political lines have become a rule, not an exception. Promotion of direct and utterly harmful political control over the entire public sector expose the system to the collapse of a fragile rule of law, equality before law and confidence in the legal system. Politicisation and partisation of the public administration have reached maximum, and recruitment of politically suitable rather than best qualified individuals renders poor public services, crisis of legality and lack of accountability. That is why it is imperative to have a sharp turn in the political culture, public policies and daily practices that are used in the public sector appointments and recruitment, because de-politicisation and meritocracy are axioms and the decisive determinants of the public administration reform.