The Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances
and Pensions Smt. Vasundhara Raje has called upon the Administrators
to change their mindset and cultivate necessary skills, patience
and tacts required for dealing with the voices of democracy in
the new era of governance. Administrators have a crucial role
in ensuring that the institutions of elected representatives,
particularly in the local governments, striving to provide a true
meaning to participatory democracy, evolve norms and styles for
functioning which will make them effective. These institutions
must be seen not as rivals, but as partners in governance, partners
who will make decision-making more democratic and governments
more responsive.
Smt. Raje was inaugurating the Second Specialised
International Conference of the International Institute of Administrative
Sciences(IIAS) here today. The Minister of Public Service and
Administration, Govt. of South Africa Ms Geraldine Fraser- Molekatei,
who is also General Rapporteur of the Conference and Director
General of IIAS, Mr. Michael Dugget were also present. Over 300
administrators from 50 countries are participating in the 4-day
conference.
Smt. Raje urged the Civil Servants to assert the
traditional civil service values of neutrality, integrity, objectivity
and professionalism, which, she said, is the only way that they
can function effectively, and at the same time, not be buffeted
around by the political winds of change. She emphasized that a
professionally competent, politically neutral and objective civil
service is the only key institution for the success of a modern
state, particularly a democracy.
Stressing the utmost need of transparency in government
functioning, Smt Raje asked the administrators to break down the
barriers, create new procedures and adopt transparent system of
functioning so that the people feel that their governments exist
not to serve themselves but to serve the people. She hoped that
the Conference would make suggestions on the capacity enhancement
needs of civil service to tackle the new challenges and on the
code of ethics that has to be developed for the civil services.
Acknowledging the need to reduce government presence
as direct player, Smt. Raje said that the government from now
onwards would be a facilitator, a coordinator, an arbitrator and
regulator to ensure a level playing field for everybody. Administrators
have to develop appropriate skills to establish the new regulatory
systems and operate them.
On the economic side, the Minister stressed the need for containing
fiscal deficits by evaluating every administrative activity in
terms of cost-benefit, efficiency and efficacy. She said, in several
cases, greater output would have to be delivered using the same
or even less staff. The success of measures to more effectively
target different kinds of subsidies or schemes, including anti-poverty
and rural development programmes, will require the administration
at the cutting –edge level, to function in imaginative, determined
and coordinated manner.
Smt. Raje outlined the bigger and indispensable
role for Governments, particularly in the developing world, as
major provider of education, health care and welfare services.
The quality and quantity of these Government services have a large
scope for improvement, she said.
The Minister underlined the need for policies
that combine high growth with expansion of human capabilities
in order to meet the challenges of globalisation. This would require
spearhead of the growth of scientific and technological forces
on the one hand and convert the forces of growth into poverty
eradication programmes on the other, she concluded
