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Administrative Simplification… beyond technology Progress in Egypt's Governance Issues

Administrative Simplification… beyond technology Progress in Egypt's Governance Issues. Working Paper presented to the Third Regional Meeting of the Working Group IV on Public Service Delivery, Public Private Partnerships and Regulatory Reforms 15-16 February 2007, Tunis, Tunisia.

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Administrative Simplification… beyond technology Progress in Egypt's Governance Issues

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  1. Administrative Simplification… beyond technologyProgress in Egypt's Governance Issues Working Paper presented to the Third Regional Meeting of the Working Group IV on Public Service Delivery, Public Private Partnerships and Regulatory Reforms 15-16 February 2007, Tunis, Tunisia Ministry of State for Administrative Development Government of EGYPT

  2. Why Good Governance Now? - States Economic Performance Failures • Re-birth of the role of the state • The need for achieving Transparency and Accountability

  3. The Egyptian Government Heritage - 54.000 Decrees and regulating Statutes • 31 Ministries • 100 General Authorities • 5.7 million public civil servants

  4. The Governance policy in Egypt • Egypt has undertaken a number of reform initiatives in improving the political, legal, economic, and financial accountability by enhancing a number of laws and by undertaking institutional reforms • In the area of political accountability, amendment to the Egyptian constitution is being discussed through a societal dialogue which is currently undergoing. As a consequence of this significant stride, there is gradually emerging a new political culture in Egypt where political accountability is gainig prominence.

  5. In the areas of economic and financial accountability, good progress continues to be made in improving the budgetary process and in structural reform initiatives aimed at transforming Egypt's economy into a private sector led economy to achieve the goals of reduced unemployment and poverty reduction • In the area of administrative accountability,(MSAD) through its organizational structure program is undertaking a review of the operational structures of government ministries. A strategic evaluation to restructure the Ministries of Information, Agriculture and Local Development has been accomplished. MSAD also accomplished the first phase of the organizational development of the National Sport Council and the strategic evaluation of the most important ten scientific research institutions. MSAD is currently cooperating with the Ministry of Social Solidarity to develop a system to manage and deliver subsidized services .

  6. The New Civil Service Law will • make the workplace more flexible, • provide a new salary structure based on competence and areas of qualification, • initiate new retirement systems, and grant incentives for productivity, • allow for measuring performance, • address issues that generate corruption at the lower levels of the public sector. The law is currently before parliament for passage, and there is an ongoing dialogue among policy makers, legal and development experts and NGOs to discuss the proposed law.

  7. Factors contributing to the delay in achieving good governance ( service delivery and flexible regulations): • Poverty …a result of mismanagement of resources • Corruption…a debatable concept • Capacity Building… a prerequisite for efficient service delivery and regulatory reform • Transparency … Availing Information • Accountability…a tool to monitor service delivery • Decentralization …an urgent policy for in planning and implementation

  8. Poverty • Poverty rate in Egypt in the year 2005 was officially stated to be around 20%. • Approximately 10.7% million Egyptians are poor • A poverty gap index of 2.97%. • When combining the upper poverty line with the lower poverty line the poverty rate rises to 42%, • The number of poor people approaches to almost 27 million, the third of the Egyptian population. • 12 million families receive government subsidies

  9. In 2004, the Egyptian government with the support of the World Bank developed a poverty reduction strategy To fix deficiencies in the safety net programme And to achieve a wide geographical coverage Improvements • MSAD developed the Family Card: A smart card that helps in the identification of required services and on the other hand identifying the exact recipients of such support. • A pilot project has been formulated and implemented in Suez governorate where by 54000 families use smart cards. • The project resulted in an average subsidy reduction of 13% .

  10. Corruption • The most important result of corruption is that it leads to directing public resources away from programmes. • Reducing social services. • Improving governance and establishing regulatory mechanisms can improve the income per capita. Regulatory Mechanisms • The Central Auditing Organization. The Administrative Control Authority • The Administration Prosecution Authority • The Public Funds Prosecution • The Illicit Gain Office

  11. The challenge: the overlap of the regulatory organization’s mandates Improvements Egypt has signed the International Anti- Corruption Agreement in 2003. • The Prime Minister‘s office assigned MSAD to establish a committee to combat administrative corruption. The committee acts as an observatory unit, and will be responsible to the Prime Minister's Office. The committee has the following mandate: • Putting national indicators to measure corruption • Identifying administrative corruption cases • Observing government agencies efforts and performance to combat corruption.

  12. Capacity Building • Government officials are key factors in Administrative simplification, They must have access to appropriate skills, guidance and training as well as a organizational culture and advanced structure that enhance efforts. • Insufficient attention was given to training managers relevant and sectors needs. • Egypt still faces a number of challenges related to the scarcity of skilled human resources in the public sector

  13. Improvements MSAD is currently organizing the training of 7000 civil servants. The training is conducted on the following subjects: • Leaders of change in cooperation with the Government Leadership Academy. The training focuses on a group of government employees in five main ministries: Primary and Higher Education-Health- Social Solidarity, Tourism and Foreign Affairs. ( about 100 top –management leaders have been trained) • Accelerated Development Program for executive managers in cooperation with Ahmed Abad Institute in India • Senior Executive Development Program for managerial leaders in cooperation with the University of Navarra (IESE program) • Project Management training in cooperation with Microsoft • Advanced Management Program and IT soft skills for middle management. ( 139 middle managers have been trained) • MSAD is supervising the training of 200,000 teachers needed for the public schools.

  14. Transparency • Though the Egyptian constitution guarantees the freedom of expression (articles 47/48), there are no provisions guaranteeing freedom of information or obligating the government to provide information to the public. • The government- citizens relations doesn't cover each stage of the policy making cycle. • Though information provided by the government are more objective, not yet complete, relevant, easy to find and accessible

  15. Improvements • Information became a two way relation in which government disseminate information to the citizens and citizens give their feedback and provide input to the government, but not necessarily incorporated in the policy-making process. • Transparency is gradually becoming an important component of the political culture in Egypt. • The Information and Decision Support Centre, the government think-tank for the cabinet, has published many survey results on evaluating the government performance. • A progress has been made concerning publishing budget-parliamentary debates on television and in the newspapers.. • The government has introduced structural amendments to the state's budget components with an aim to improve the transparency in government's public expenditure allocations. For this purpose some provisions of the law of the state budget 53/1973 were amended. • The tender's law 89/1998, which replaced the old law 9/1983 allowed that procurement procedures are carried out on the basis of competitive bidding. The new law oblige government officials to take technical factors and not just price into consideration.

  16. Accountability • Internal accountability includes monitoring government’s performance by the judiciary and legislature. • External accountability refers to holding service providers and policy makers accountable by the citizens. • Accountability is achieved through a good restructuring policy and budgetary institutions to ensure satisfactory delivery of services.

  17. Improvements • One of the strengths of the budgetary institution in Egypt is that the roles of the executive, legislature and other judicial departments of the government are clearly defined in the constitution ( articles 114/115/116/117) • Roles and responsibilities of the governorates, local authorities and other entities who receive budget support are also well defined. This resulted in a fiscal transparency.

  18. Decentralization • The highly centralized public sector in Egypt means that local people are marginalized in determining the budgets and programmes of their communities. • Local government employees represent 61% of all government employees. • 82% expenditures are conducted at the local level. • The central government controls the local government budgets, which make local government dependent on the central government to determine and finance development projects. • Only 9% of the total government expenditure is decided at the local level.

  19. Improvements • MSAD developed and automated all 7 municipalities in Alexandria (E-Alex), and developed the Systems of Districts & Localities: Red Sea (Safaga- Kosseir- Hurghada) – Cairo (Maadi - Agouza) – Giza (Abu Rawash). • A study has been conducted to evaluate the implementation of decentralization projects in education in Alexandria and Qena governorates. • The government's policy is currently concentrating on enabling local government's officials to determine local public choices and needs and to plan the projects and govern its implementation. • MSAD will coordinate with the Ministry of Finance to enable local governments to raise funds for their projects. This would engender increased accountability at the local level for public service failures.

  20. New Adopted Policies and Trends • Utilizing ICT in Regulatory Reform and Administrative Simplification. • Corporate Governance • Partnership with citizens and NGOs

  21. Utilizing ICT in Regulatory Reform and Administrative Simplification • The transparency in the management of the public sector has improved as a consequence of the adoption of a series of IT solutions. • The government has fully operationalized an e-government programme that is being designed for the citizens and investors to gain easy access to information and government institutions, which provide electronic services to the public. • 50 services on the government portal • 6 new investment services has been added, and an investment portal has been launched.

  22. Utilizing ICT in Regulatory Reform and Administrative Simplification • 500 service provision centers ( kiosks) are distributed in different parts of the country, employing new graduates to work there in summer on contract basis. • 130 post offices, 150 kiosks run by the private sector will begin working in the second half of 2007, of which 21 are now functioning. • Availing services over the internet for the Systems of Family Courts: Appeal & Superior Family Courts in Cairo, and on the Public Notary Offices: Locations: Azbakeya – Kasr El-Nil – Ismailia, which resulted in reducing the procedures time of the establishment of companies from 55 to 3 days (One Stop Shop). • Modeling of the workflow in the Sales Taxes Unit. • Automation of the government financial units. MSAD, in cooperation with local ICT companies, has developed a system for the automation of the government financial units. The first phase is accomplishing the automation of 1600 financial units, 59 units in the first phase were accomplished during the last in 6 months.

  23. Corporate Governance • Egypt is currently adopting the Corporate Governance Code of Principles following the liberalization and deregulation programme that started in the 90s with privatization of some of the public sector. • The code of principles promotes transparent and efficient markets consistent with the rule of law, and encourages the Egyptian corporations to comply with the rules in promoting responsible and transparent behavior in the management of corporations.

  24. Improvements • The Code of Corporate Governance has been developed through the combined efforts of General Authority for Investment and Free Zones ( GAFI), and Cairo and Alexandria Stock Exchange and the Centre for International Private Enterprises. • Local accountants and auditors were consulted in the preparation of the new code. The General Authority for Investment and Free Zones ( GAFI) has started a consultation programme with the investment forums on a regular basis. • Further steps has been taken towards improving corporate governance through empowering managers and enhancing the role of the general assemblies. • The government is planning to appoint two deputy chairmen in each company with financial and technical backgrounds.

  25. Partnership with citizens and NGOs • MSAD considers the importance of building partnership with NGOs, believing that NGOs provide successful tools in enhancing public awareness, campaigning to combat corruption, monitoring service delivery and providing services. Improvements • The Minister of State for Administrative Development held about 15 meetings and encounters with NGOs representatives ( Media people- Syndicates-Students Unions) during the last four month to discuss with the public new policy trends and procedures to be taken pertaining administrative development. • MSAD receive daily about 50 citizens complaints. There is another committee established by the cabinet to receive citizens complaints.

  26. Conclusion • MSAD presented during the second steering group meeting at ministerial level in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, 19-20 May, 2006, potential assistance areas concerning service delivery and regulatory reform, as follows: • A project to review the public institutions performance engaged in the delivery of public services in priority development areas: elementary and secondary education- public health- public transportation and the delivery of food supplies to the most vulnerable groups. In this regard a Government Performance Directorate could be developed like in Jordan. • A project to review and strengthen the rules and procedures for enhancing the public- private partnership in the area of small and medium enterprises. The project is suggested to include pilot activities of both sectors to be implemented in two governorates chosen on the basis of their social and economic needs. Best practices could be replicated in other parts of the region.

  27. Agreed upon fields of cooperation • In a recent meeting with OECD representatives, MSAD and OECD agreed on organizing a regional seminar on " Strategies, Tools and Capacities for Administrative Simplification, in the second half of 2007. • The Seminar is suggested to discuss the following subjects: • Capacities for Administrative Simplification: the policy strategy • Capacities for Administrative Simplification: the institutional design • Tools for Administrative Simplification • Implementing Simplification Strategies: the case of 'one- stop-shops' • Implementing Simplification Strategies: the case of licenses

  28. I appreciate your attention Presented By: Dr. Ghada Ali Moussa International Relations Co-ordinator Ministry of State for Administrative Development Government of EGYPT

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