Jordan Times
Tuesday, April 5, 2005
Administrative reform will
have no negative social impact — Fayez
AMMAN (Petra) — Prime Minister Faisal Fayez on Monday urged officials in charge
of administrative reform to reach out to civil society institutions to “clear up
any misunderstanding” about the process.
During a visit to the newly established General Department of Public Sector
Development, the premier said the reform procedures the agency is tasked with
implementing “will not have a negative social impact.”
He explained that the process will entail no layoffs, rather it would focus on
increasing the productivity of civil servants by training them to be qualified
to do a better job in their present institutions or in other public agencies.
Minister of State for Public Reforms Ahmad Masadeh said the department is
working on its mission following the guidelines set by a document the Cabinet
recently endorsed, which outlines the government's policy on public reforms.
Outlining achievements and plans under implementation, the minister said a
programme designed to improve services offered to citizens would be first
applied at the Customs Department as a pilot project before it is introduced in
other government agencies.
Reform authorities have come up with a draft plan to improve the civil service
system over the next five years, Masadeh added
Fayez also visited the Education Ministry yesterday, where Minister of Education
Khalid Touqan gave a briefing on the education situation in the country, noting
that the ministry serves about 75 per cent of the country's 1.5 million
students.
The ministry has completed a draft strategy seeking to enhance decentralisation
in education, Touqan told the premier. He also highlighted a plan to introduce a
medical branch to secondary education that will replace the existing nursing
branch.
The minister also noted that 100,000 PCs had been installed in the Kingdom's
schools in 2004, while 2,000 schools were now connected to the fibre-optic
electronic network.
Fayez said the education revolution launched by His Majesty King Abdullah would
“reap fruit in the form of a generation that is capable of participating in the
comprehensive development process.”