Democracy and Political Governance 245. 246. Chapter 3 Fourthly, the director referred to audit committees. Five ministries and departments originally established these in June 2006 and then another five ministries and departments did so. However, the committees faced certain constraints a year later. These included lack of commitment by accounting officers. They therefore did not function as well as expected. He referred to his earlier recommendations to ensure the effectiveness of these committees. His recommendations were that: (i) retired and experienced senior public officers be enlisted; (ii) one person from outside the public sector be appointed to each committee; and (iii) each member of a committee be paid at least a sitting allowance. He noted that his recommendations to the Ministry of Finance and Economic Empowerment (MOFEE) were not considered. He added: “In fact, it seems that the Ministry does not believe in Audit Committees and therefore is paying only lip service to this important function. The situation has worsened: There was no Audit Committee at the MOFEE.” As in the case of the PAC, the impression that one gets is that the NAO is not as effective as it should be and that ministries and departments currently feel that they can ignore its work, including its recommendations. Chapter 3 drain – officers leave for better-paid jobs abroad. The country has tried to respond to this challenge by training young officers quickly so that they can take on the responsibilities of those who leave. 250. The pay structure, especially at the top, is not very attractive compared with that in the private sector. As a result, the best people are not attracted into the civil service. The civil service has limited room for manoeuvre, given that there is a public, but independent, body. This is the PRB. It should not be confused with the NRB, which is empowered to determine the minimum wage for the country. It publishes a salary review report every five years. It published its most recent one in August 2008. There will perhaps always be a gap in remuneration between the public and private sectors in favour of the private sector, because the two services differ in nature. However, civil services all over the world must review and revise upwards the remuneration of their employees periodically so that this gap does not become unacceptably wide. A very wide gap would harm the morale of civil servants, reduce productivity and cause some of its best people to leave the service. 251. Managing diversity is a challenge. About 60 per cent of the Mauritian people are of Indian origin. Most of them had parents with foresight who sent them to school. This means they had majorities in a number of institutions, including the civil service. It is worth mentioning the people of Rodrigues here. Most of them did not go to school and they therefore do not have the qualifications for jobs advertised. Consequently, they do not apply for these jobs and find themselves underrepresented in the civil service. iii. Recommendations 252. The APR Panel recommends that: • • • • Other challenges to the Mauritian public service 247. There were four further criticisms of the Mauritian civil service. These are that it is administrative and not developmental, lacks skills in certain areas, has an unattractive pay structure, and is unable to manage diversity. 248. The service tends to be administrative rather than developmental. Consequently, it tends to be bureaucratic at times. In other words, the civil service has an attitude problem. It is not keen on change and is reluctant to adapt. Perhaps the very nature of the civil service, with its security of tenure that makes officials rather complacent, causes this. To address this weakness, the MCSAR has tried to modernise the service through a number of initiatives. 249. 124 The service suffers from a shortage of skills, especially among the technical staff. There are, for example, increasingly fewer experienced health and occupational safety officers, engineers and architects. Those who used to be there have left for greener pastures. Initially, there was an internal brain drain, with officials moving from the civil service to the private sector. Now, there is an externally oriented brain Democracy and Political Governance The government continues to consult the private sector when developing policy. [Government] The government makes special efforts to improve the general literacy of the people. This will allow them to learn about ICT and, subsequently, to access online services. [Government] The MCSAR be careful about applying private sector methods, because not all of them suit the public service. [MCSAR] The MCSAR establishes the proposed civil service college as soon as possible to handle postrecruitment and in-service training. [MCSAR] 125