Background
“Lebanon has the 3rd highest debt to GDP ratio” in the world (Lebanon’s Economic Vision). This is “driven by successive budget deficits” (Lebanon’s Economic Vision) due to extraneous spending. Notably, in 2018, Lebanon spent over 46% of its revenues on public wages (Lebanon’s Economic Vision), signifying the vast amount of servants employed by the state. Despite their significant number however, many of Lebanon’s civil servants do not seem to play a significant role in serving the public interest. Instead, Lebanon’s bureaucratic structure seems to be fabricated to satiate personal and political greed, rather than governmental needs, and thus, one homogeneous employment structure does not exist. This is to say that public officials are hired miscellaneously (usually as contractuals) to advance the agendas of clientelistic networks and are no longer hired based on merit and qualification to serve the public good. This illegal employment of less qualified officials not only helps incur higher paying government wages, but also brings forth further unethical behavior by ministries and public servants, such as nepotism, bribery, and other forms of corruption.
Moreover, a lack of one coherent payroll for public officials allows for ministries and other public institutions to work in an unchecked environment without fiscal or legal transparency. This is to say that as there is no one institution to handle all fiscal responsibilities that comes with public employment, allowing any ministry in Lebanon to partake in budgetary corruption, where actual spending may differ from original expenditure plans. This then decreases the public’s confidence in the rule of law and undermines the government’s legitimacy. It is important to note here that there are also many public officials within clientelistic networks that work in inactive agencies, such as state transportation and postal departments, that thus, hold political sinecures allotted millions of dollars in designated budget every year.
Without competent employees, ministries are then left to hire external consultants for much of their administrative and technical work, allowing them to also sidestep providing expensive benefits to what would have been fixed-term employees. Notably, however, even external consultants and firms are subject to measures of clientelism. As governments succeed one another, and new ministers from different political parties are appointed, there is a higher turnover of employees and consultants. This not only then leads to a discontinuity in public services, research, and strategy, but also undermines functions of accountability. All of the above then construes the relationship between the government and its public servants.
Duties and Responsibilities:
The Policy Paper will revolve around the relationship between the Lebanese government and its public employees, answering questions related to the formal and informal mechanisms of public sector structuring, employment, accountability measures, etc..
The policy paper should notably tackle the following main points:
Under the supervision of the Programme Manager and Director, the Policy Analyst’s main tasks include:
Qualifications
Applicants should submit a clear research proposal including an outline, potential interview list, and quotation to: [email protected] [1] with “Policy Paper- Public Employees” in the subject line. Proposals should be submitted by 16 May 2019. Applications...
روابط
[1] mailto:[email protected]