John E.K. Sotenga discusses his long experience in Ghana's Internal Revenue Service and the gradual improvements that were made in capacity. He focuses on the challenges of reorganizing tax administration along functional lines. As the first director of Ghana’s Large Taxpayers Unit, a one-stop shop for large taxpayers, Sotenga encountered the difficulties of integrating staff from three separate agencies: the IRS, the customs agency, and the value-added tax agency. He stresses the importance of placing employees from the three different agencies in groups together on specific tasks, thereby allowing them to gradually transfer their skills to one another.

Case Study: Professionalization, Decentralization, and a One-Stop Shop: Tax Collection Reform in Ghana, 1986-2008

Albert Bockarie describes civil service reforms after the end of civil war in Sierra Leone.  He focuses on recruitment procedures and training.  He reports that because of low public service pay, the country suffered from a “brain drain” and corruption.  He argues that these problems cannot be addressed without increasing salaries.  He describes the challenge of getting pay for retirees disbursed promptly.  He urges increased use of computers and other information technologies as essential because paper records can be lost or purposely destroyed.  He says international donors and consultants are helpful in meeting these challenges.     

Jairo Acuña-Alfaro discusses Vietnam’s past and, at the time of the interview, ongoing and future efforts to reform the civil service. He discusses the Vietnamese public sector’s shortcomings, including corruption, nepotism, politicization, low salaries, and a lack of clear job descriptions. He describes what Vietnam is doing to modernize its civil service by introducing merit-based considerations in recruitment and promotions; to encourage professionalism by restructuring and formalizing the civil service and improving performance management; to improve service delivery through decentralization, consolidation, and the establishment of one-stop shops; and to curtail corruption by enacting pay reform and monetizing benefits. He also discusses challenges specific to Vietnam, including the politicization of civil service through the single-party system, rigid hierarchism and the consequent lack of initiative from subordinates, and other cultural factors. Finally, Acuña-Alfaro emphasizes the establishment of best practices as key to reforming a country’s civil service.    

Case Study:  Measuring Citizen Experiences: Conducting a Social Audit in Vietnam, 2009-2013

Syed Tanveer Hussain discusses a report on Bangladeshi government downsizing and restructuring he authored for the Office of the Prime Minister in 2002.  This document examined the implementation status and relative urgency of recommendations issued by 17 prior administrative reform committees and reorganization commissions.  Hussain describes a number of reasons for unsuccessful or incomplete implementation: lack of political will across party lines, insufficient explanation of reform rationale, finger-pointing at civil servants that generates built-in resistance, a reform committee system that fosters procrastination, and a distribution of power that at times favors the interests of a stable bureaucracy.  Hussain characterizes his ideal for the bureaucracy and describes a four-step process to achieve that ideal through planning, structural reform, capacity building and constant monitoring.  He then explains in detail each of his concrete proposals.  Among successfully implemented recommendations he counts separation of the Supreme Court and judiciary from other branches of government, and the establishment of quotas for civil service employment of the handicapped. Pending recommendations include administrative downsizing through elimination of function redundancy and outsourcing of some tasks to the private sector, appointment of an ombudsman, creation of financial incentives for civil servant relocation to remote areas of the country, computerization of ministries, employment of local manpower at Bangladeshi embassies for efficiency, retirement age increase in response to improvements in life expectancy, a constitutional mandate for a Civil Service Act, division of civil service into functional clusters to facilitate competition for awards and promotion, and creation of a senior-management pool.  While the government forwarded the report to the Establishment Division for implementation, it neglected its recommendation to streamline reform through an Administrative Performance Services Division modeled after its Malaysian equivalent and set up under the Prime Minister’s Office. Hussain believes centralization is key for successful administrative reform.  

Case Study:  Energizing the Civil Service: Managing at the Top 2, Bangladesh, 2006-2011