My earlier comments on the PRB seem to have irked some of my readers and in an attempt to tone me down, they pointed out that even as a retiree I will still benefit from some fruitful adjustments to my pension. But I did not wait for my retirement to settle my scores with the PRB . My article titled “PRB: Compensation for improved service delivery?” dates back to the 5th June 2013 and was published in l’express .
I have raised some of the issues pertaining to the PRB at 3 levels:
A: Compensation for improved service delivery?
B. PRB: An outdated institution !
C: The wage-price spiral
A. Compensation for improved service delivery ?
Government have made a provision of Rs 8.3 billion for the Pay Research Bureau (PRB) . A sum of Rs 1.7 billion will be allocated for 2021, Rs 3.3 billion for 2022 and Rs 3.3 billion for 2023 .
The PRB award is a combination of compensation for the loss of purchasing power and for the improvement in the productivity of the public sector worker. We have to examine the rewards of government workers vis- à -vis their output or their service delivery. So the discussion should not only be focusing on what it costs to the economy or the taxpayer but whether the compensation to the civil servant relative to his improved productivity is excessive or not? Does he deserve it?
Yes, it would have been easier to justify it if MOFED had not debunked the Programme or Performance Based Budget (PBB) for what is now just an approximation, a spurious imitation and a mere soupcon of a real PBB.
The proper implementation of a budget management process that links allocation of public resources to clear outputs and agreed outcomes, and provides a framework for reporting on results would have meant a shift in the whole public sector from a culture of administration to a culture of results.
The 2010 Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA) assessment, had encouraged us to continue our efforts in improving our still embryonic PBB which was starting to show good results against many of the PEFA benchmarks.
The Director of Audit had also noted several areas of progress in the implementation of the PBB reform and encouraged us to move ahead with the stabilization of the budget presentation format and recommended a greater ownership of the process by line ministries ( as opposed to our top-down and MOFED’s centric approach) which would have led to a wider understanding of concepts like outcomes, services to be provided (outputs) and service standards (indicators), and improvements in programme costing.
Both the IMF and CABRI (Collaborative Africa Budget Reform Initiative) also provided crucial inputs to our still rudimentary Progarmme Based Budgeting which would have made a noticeable impact on budgetary processes including flexibility and ownership, better resource allocation, performance orientation and transparency. They also submitted recommendations on how to consolidate the PBB process and further develop the monitoring and evaluation of service delivery in relation to spending.
The PBB, by providing performance information on service standards through the Key Performance Indicators –KPIs- of the ministries/departments for their budget programmes, helps us to assess their service delivery (in realising their KPIs and in the execution of the budget measures), supported by a dedicated unit for the reporting, monitoring, evaluation and implementation facilitator/delivering system -a function previously performed by the earlier Ministry of Economic Planning and Development (MEPD)
We would then be able to safely assess whether such and such teams of the ministries/depts have been on target in terms of service delivery and thus recommend that their improved performance be aptly rewarded by the PRB.
We were moving up the learning curve and there were many flaws and shortcomings in the implementation of the PBB. The PBB approach should have been thoroughly reviewed, but it should not have been jettisoned. PBB, when properly implemented with an effective monitoring and evaluation process, does confer greater accountability and transparency to fiscal management and helps us to build a more performance-oriented civil service. The PBB would thus have provided a basis to justify the PRB awards relative to the service delivery / productivity of government workers.
B. PRB-an outdated institution
It is time to do away with the Pay Research Bureau. The country needs a more up-to-date National Resource Commission (NRC) An NRC would be able to intervene to re-allocate our resources giving a new orientation towards realising our vision of a more services-based knowledge hub or any other hubs that are more fashionable these days. This means that we should be privileging first of all teachers (especially scientists) not administrators –in Germany and Finland, the best elements usually join primary and secondary teaching- and agronomists , ocean-economy specialists for e.g, researchers, IT , AI and the science-oriented professions.
The more crucial and the riskier the jobs the higher the salaries or the allowances- special allowances for the policeman on patrol and for those carrying out special risky duties and the greater the need for innovation and creativity needed for a job, the higher the pay packet- IT programmers, lecturers, scientific officers and researchers etc. In specific areas of specialisation , we have to offer them hefty pay packages if we want to palliate to the lack of AIs, neurosurgeons, geriatricians etc.
C: The wage-price spiral
With the latest figures showing the monetary base exploding by some 77%(April year-on-year growth figure), followed by a huge depreciation of the rupee fanning the flames of inflation- the hike in international commodity prices and freights- to unacceptable levels, I doubt whether all these irresponsible wage and pension policies combined with the budget 2021-22’s boost in non-prioritised and unproductive capital spending will not be pushing the country into a spiral of higher inflation and interest rates and falling economic growth.
For many, the concerns of seeing inflation reaching gale force or the concerns of the common man can take a back seat.
But mind you, rising unemployment and increasing food inflation will not only be hurting the common man, but will also be creating economic instability which may even lead to political disruption.
