PROVINCIAL administrations will still have to go through “due process” when hiring and firing staff, Public Service Minister Peter O’Neill said.
He said the powers and processes devolved to provincial administrations were the same as that exercised by the Department of Personnel Management, under general orders and regulations.
“The need is to provide competent and committed public services for the vast majority of our people who live in the districts – away from Port Moresby and provincial centres,” he said in a statement in response to reports in The National last week.
“The objective of devolving powers related to hiring, firing and disciplining of employees is to speed the processes for making district public servants accountable.”
Mr O’Neill said the National Government was putting huge sums of money to improve services into district services that required enhanced and accountable administration.
He said every MP knew the competent and hardworking district public servants and those absentee public servants who were more at home in the provincial capital than in the district, and of district administrators who could barely write basic correspondence, let alone plan and supervise district projects.
“They will not allow hiring and firing without due process. They will allow immediate cessation of salaries and allowances to government employees who are absent from duty without due cause. The only difference will be speeding procedures to make public servants accountable.”
He said the diverse training programmes needed to be coordinated into an award system, which could be a credible basis for appointment and promotion in government services.