Institutional delivery will also be a target in the next annual performance agreement

Midterm: Success indicators for national integrity and anti-corruption strategy in the annual performance agreement (APA) will be revised, Lyonchhoen Tshering Tobgay told dzongdas during the mid-year review.

“I’ll sit with anti-corruption commission (ACC) to work out an efficient method to gauge implementation of national integrity and anti-corruption strategy in APA,” lyonchhoen said.

One of the objectives of APA, the implementation of national integrity and anti-corruption strategy, is used to gauge the degree of rectitude and loyalty of civil servants in dzongkhags.

The proposed change comes after the current method of gauging the rectitude with the numbers of audit memos and report in ACC against the dzongkhags was found vague and incompetent.

Dzongkhags were found using the number of irregularities and memos against the districts reflected in annual audit report as success indicators for national integrity.  Another success indicator used to gauge anti-corruption strategy was using the number of complaints lodged against the dzongkhags with the ACC.

For instance, most dzongkhags set zero report of corrupt practices and irregularities as their target to gauge its integrity.  Zhemgang and Bumthang were also using the same method, which, lyonchhoen felt, was deficient.

“Issuance of audit memo doesn’t necessarily indicate presence of corruption,” lyonchhoen said, adding that, similarly, every complaint lodged with the ACC also would not mean corruption, since some complaints are filed with malicious intent.

The Prime Minister will also work with relevant agencies and ministries to improve data collection, after Trongsa dzongda, Tshewang Rinzin, pointed out that getting data proved to be an obstruction in collecting authentic reports for the APA.

“In the first place, it’s difficult to get the statistics, while the credibility of those available is unknown,” Tshewang Rinzin said.

Lyonchhoen said data collection in dzongkhags could be improved with inclusion of tshogpas (village representative) across the country.

“Tshogpas can be able to provide information on how many children are enrolled in schools, who missed immunisation, and which child was born at home,” lyonchhoen said, adding information provided by them would be credible.

The dzongkhags were also asked to initiate their own data collection on unemployment rate in respective jurisdictions, after the dzongkhags started using borrowed information from the labour ministry.

“It’s important to collect unemployment data at the dzongkhag level for credibility aspect by not relying on national statistics,” lyonchhoen said, adding that, importantly, failing to collect data can also result in not realising the APA targets.  Institutional delivery will also be included as an objective in the next APA.

 

By Tempa Wangdi, Trongsa

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