TIRANA, March 8 – One out of three public administration employees in 2017 got their jobs through direct appointments by heads of state institutions, avoiding lengthy and complicated procedures through the Public Administration Department.
The grim situation is unveiled through an annual report by the state Commissioner for the Supervision of the Civil Service, a body established in 2014 to monitor the public administration.
Out of 2,803 employment procedures inspected by the Commissioner in 2017, 839 of them, or about 30 percent, were carried out through a simple appointment procedure by the head of the institution in violation of the law under temporary contracts.
The Commissioner describes the situation as alarming and has demanded the dismissal of the illegally appointed employees.
The National Food Authority and local government units in the region of Dibra, northern Albania, topped the list of illegal employment procedures, the report shows.
“What can be considered as a problem that is re-emerging, after being at low levels a year earlier, is recruitment in violation of the law, through temporary contracts. This phenomenon is now evident, especially among local government institutions,” says the report.
“The Commissioner’s challenge is to ensure an independent and efficient supervisory process in order to prevent the violation of law and handle illegal cases through the tools provided by law,” says Pranvera Strakosha, who in late 2014 was elected as the country’s first Commissioner for the Supervision of the Civil Service.
The report says the Public Administration Department has started implementing recruitment procedures electronically, something that allows no room for subjectivity in marking tests.
Public administration recruitment procedures were suspended in May 2017 ahead of the June 25 general elections and remained suspended for most of the time even after a new government headed by re-elected Prime Minister Edi Rama took over due to restructuring as eight previous ministries were cut.
Public administration employees were banned to participate in electoral events during their office hours in the last campaign for the June 2017 general elections.
The general perception about jobs in the public administration is that procedures are highly fictitious, led by nepotism, cronyism, or political clientelism.
Public administration jobs have become much sought after in the past few years, competing the private sector where wages have in general remained unchanged and working hours are much longer, often including Saturdays and national holidays with no bonuses.
However, uncertainties remain great even in the public administration when new governments or directors take over, triggering often politically motivated dismissals that cause taxpayers dozens of millions of euros every year.
Unfair dismissals of public administration employees cost Albanian taxpayers a staggering 8 billion lek ($62.5 million, €58 million) from 2014 to 2016, Open Data research center has unveiled through a database of treasury transactions in payments following court decisions against the firings.
The amount wasted on unfair dismissals, a regular usually politically motivated phenomenon that has accompanied Albania in its past 25 years of transition, would have created thousands of much needed jobs through support to private sector, accounting for 80 percent of total employment and producing about four-fifths of Albania’s GDP.
The drastic cut in the number of ministries after a new Socialist Party-led government took over in September 2017 has not been accompanied with the expected slash in the number of central government employees.
Prime Minister Edi Rama cut the number of ministries to 11, down from a previous 16 as he claimed a second consecutive term of office out of the June 2017 general elections, merging several ministries, and vowing to cut the number of government agencies by a quarter to 104, from a current 141.
However, a report by ‘Open data’ research center referring to the 2018 budget shows that while ministries have cut some few hundreds of jobs, the slash was compensated by an increase in the number of some central government agencies and some newly established institutions, taking the number of central government paid employees to 81,753 for 2018, some 40 people more compared to last year.
Albania has another 80,000 employees in the public sector working in either government run companies or local government units.
Albania had about 164,560 public sector employees at the end of the third quarter of 2017, accounting for about 16 percent of total employees, according to state statistical institute, INSTAT.
In its latest progress report on Albania, the European Commission says Albania is moderately prepared in what concerns the reform of its public administration. “The implementation of more transparent recruitment procedures of civil servants, as well as the implementation of the public administration reform and public financial management reform strategies have continued. Further progress is key to consolidate achievements towards a more efficient, depoliticised, and professional public administration,” says the European Commission.
