‘Delegation of powers to boost Govt service’

THE experimental move to give human resource management powers to national departments and provincial administrations is to make them more responsible for their own decisions and actions.
The ultimate objective was to improve the quality of public service and to move it faster in respect to governance and public service reforms, Margaret Elias, secretary to Department of Personnel Management (DPM) said yesterday.
She said the Government was aware that service delivery to the people had declined and it was hoped that the devolution of the DPM’s powers would help turn it around.
She said the decision to give the powers and responsibilities to the Chief Secretary to the Government, the Secretary of the Petroleum Department and the provincial administrators of East Sepik and Morobe, heads of the Institute of Public Administration and the Modilon Hospital in Madang as well as the Department of Prime Minister and the National Executive Council was the second phase of the pilot project.
The first phase was launched last Oct 5 and the powers were given to the heads of the Department of Treasury, Department of Works, PNG Internal Revenue Commission, Department of Education, Milne Bay provincial administration, Manus provincial administration and the Bougainville autonomous administration.
The third phase would be carried out in February, she said when commenting on the front-page report of The National yesterday.
Ms Elias said the powers were not restricted to “hire and fire”.
They also included selection and disciplining, she said.
“We are using this opportunity to also focus on providing strategic personnel management services, set standards across the public service, develop training programmes and train human resource management personnel and carry out auditing to check for compliance to ensure that the delegated powers and responsibilities were properly applied in Government agencies.”
Andrew Kandakasi, a director of the Amalgamated General Workers Union, described the move as nothing major as “public servants have always been hired and fired anyway”.