IV CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT
SECRETARIAT OF STATE OF THE COUNCIL OF MINISTERS
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PRESS RELEASE
Council of Ministers Meeting of April 27, 2011
This Wednesday, April 27, 2011, the Council of Ministers met at the Council of Ministers’ meeting room in the Government Palace, Dili, and approved:
1. Decree-Law that approves the first amendment to the Public Administration Carrier System and Directorate and Leadership Posts Regime (Decree-Law n.o 27/2008)
The amendment to the Public Administration Carrier System and of the Directorate and Leadership Posts Regime appears from the need to develop and specify the details about the recruitment and special carriers’ development. There are no new powers in this proposal, only the adaptation of the Decree-Law n.o 27/2008 to Law n.o 7/2009, that created the Public Service Commission and the responsibilities that were attributed to it.
The Public Service Commission will now perform human resources management and to make flexible the demand for academic qualification in the recruitment. In the general regime, there is an amendment concerning the salaries of staff in directorate and leadership positions, which becomes a single table, or in other words, from now on only one salary exists for each post of leadership and directorate instead of a minimum and maximum value.
2. Decree-Law that approves the first amendment to the Public Administration Servants Licence and Absence from Work Regime (Decree-Law n.o 40/2008 from October, 29)
This first amendment to the Public Administration Servants Licence and Absences from Work Regime gives autonomy to the General-Directors to concede licences without pay.
The licences for academic purposes are dependant of the training and development regime still to be considered by the Government.
It is also up to the Public Service Commission to accompany unjustified absences from work and the respective discount from the public servant’s salary.
3. Decree-Law that approves the first amendment to the Public Administration Servants Advertisement, Recruitment, Selection and Promotion Regime (Decree-Law n.o 34/2008 from August, 27)
The Public Administration Servants Advertisement, Recruitment, Selection and Promotion Regime, has had its first amendment to guarantee the legality of the conversion of the temporary workers into permanent ones. In what concerns the recruitment and selection by merit, this depends on the Public Service Commission which can delegate it to the institutions and ministries.
The recruitment process thus tends to be simpler which allows the jury to reconsider its decision and for the candidate to appeal.
The transitory regime for workers with temporary contracts to be integrated in the permanent staff should happen according to the rules defined in Government Resolution n.º 42/2010. The candidate should have at least 6 months contract up to November, 2010, and fulfil the requirements of the art.º 14 of the Public Service Statute, to have a classification of “Good” in his performance evaluation and to fluent in one of the official languages. Besides these, a certification is necessary from the Director-General regarding the permanent nature of the post and the candidate’s appropriate qualifications.
The temporary contract thus becomes an exception for transitory tasks, special or urgent, with non-permanent character and defined duration, to a maximum of 6 months.
4. Decree-Law that approves the second amendment to the Public Administration Servants Performance Evaluation Regime (Decree-Law n.º 14/2008 from May, 7)
The proposed alterations to the second amendment of the Public Administration Servants Performance Evaluation Regime is a result of the criticism and observation of the two annual evaluation processes already carried out and that make the evaluation more effective and understandable to the worker. The evaluation process is intended to help guide the training actions and define the service’s objectives making it more appropriated to the nature of Public Service activities.
Self-evaluation ceases to exist and the right to appeal to the Public Service Commission is guaranteed. Lastly, whoever exercises a direction and leadership post has different factors for evaluation from the rest of the workers.
The Council of Ministers also analysed:
1. The Public Service Commission 2010 Annual Activities Report
With one year and half of activity, completed in December, 2010, the Public Service Commission presented its Annual Activities Report.
In 2010 the Public Service commission controlled the presence at work of the existing public servants, registered around 12.300 temporary work contracts, and supported the institutions to prepare the workers map for the budget discussion, saw the approval of the proposals for the Salaries Supplement Regime and the Policy for the Conversion of Temporary Workers. It also established 164 disciplinary processes, applied sanctions to 36 civil servants and included into the system information about 23 000 servants and agents.
The Public Service Commission, also highlighted the analysis of more than 11 000 candidates for 215 vacancies that, together with 400 servants from 2009 make a total of 600 new recruited civil servants, around 90% of the vacancies. Also It is also highlighted the more than 370 nominations for service commission of general-directors, national directors and heads of department and the performance evaluation done to all of the Public Service.