A COMPARATIVE PAY STUDY COMMISSIONED
The Ministry of Public Service and Labour with support from HIDA, the Human Resources and Institutional Capacity Development Agency, has officially commissioned a comparative study on pay reform as an input to the ongoing initiatives of developing a medium to long-term pay reform strategy.
In a bid to reinforce the performance of its administration, Rwanda has for a couple of years implemented an administrative reform by introducing a decentralized, flexible, and
incremental citizens need centered management.
Acknowledging the fact that these reforms of public management requires competent and motivated human resources, the Government of Rwanda initiated studies on the issue of public servant’s capacity and motivation strengthening, in relation to career and remuneration, with a view to improving their productivity.
Indeed, the problem of lack of a clear political orientation concerning civil servants career prospects, sustainable incentive and salary has been a daunting challenge. Salary review, since 1997, was not based on a coherent technical and political analysis, or on a clear and comprehensive salary policy.
This way of handling the question of careers and wages led in some cases, to the creation of significant disparities between public servants and private sector employees, which generated departures of high profile competent public civil servants shifting to the private sector, thus weakening the public administration operational capacities and worse still in critical functions.
In an effort to attempt and set a coherent framework of solution to this situation, the Government of Rwanda managed to invest its resources in the following appropriate tools, among others: (i) Classification of public administration posts (June 2004); (ii) Guide for determining salaries in public sector (June 2004); and (iii) Study on the salary system of Rwandan public administration staff (August 2005).
This salary policy comes within the scope of prospective better management and development of state’s human resources, with a view to attracting and on a sustainable basis maintain the most effective and competent public civil servants; this requires incentives, which could be ensured notably through: (i) Proficiency course opportunities, in accordance with promotion; (ii) Linking pay to performance; (iii) Clearly defined career prospects; and (iv) social benefits.
The comparative pay study that is envisaged is aimed at establishing an objective reference base for determining salaries in the public sector.
“It is against this background the Government through MIFOTRA is carrying out a study on salary differentials across public, private, civil society sectors and donor projects to inform a pay scheme capable of attracting, motivating and retaining qualified staff. This consultancy is financed through the World Bank’s Public Sector Capacity Building Project (PSCBP), coordinated by the Human Resource and Institutional Capacity Building Agency (HIDA). The consultancy will be undertaken from August till October 2007,” reports Mr. Pascal Niyigena, Public Sector Reform Specialist at HIDA.
The major objective of the comparative pay study is that it will serve as a basis for developing an affordable retention strategy for keeping qualified staff in the public sector. At the center of this retention strategy will be an adequate salary policy, complemented by other incentives (training opportunities, job security, career prospects) the importance of which will be established through this study.
This study will address the following fundamental questions: (i) Why do the best public servants so often quit the public sector? and (ii) What can the government do to retain and motivate its staff (retention strategy)?
