65
Capacity Building/Institutional Strengthening
188.
The Government continues to recognise the need to continue to build and
maintain human and institutional capacity within the public sector, in order to be better
able to deliver better quality and more efficient services to the public. In this regard, the
Ministry of Planning and Sustainable Development is in the process of establishing a
methodology to target the building of core competencies within the context of approved
Strategic Plans and Training Plans by Ministries, Departments, and Statutory Boards and
by the THA. In this regard, fiscal year 2013 marked the introduction of this process
aimed at reviewing and refining the approach to capacity building and institutional
strengthening. The sum of approximately $142 million was made available in 2013 for a
wide range of activities across the public service, of which approximately $96 million (or
67%) was utilised.
189.
The sum of $2 million was originally provided to the IDB/GORTT-funded Public
Sector Reform Initiation Programme to complete payment for the final deliverables under
this Programme. Included among these were the establishment of a Project Management
Unit (PMU) at the Ministry of Finance, institutional reform of CSO and a review of
Scholarship Allowances. Over the course of the year, the Bank agreed to a final extension
to this US$6.2 million Programme, to February 2014 to allow for the completion of an
expanded listing of selected projects by a number of Ministries and Departments, for
which expenditure totalling approximately $9.5 million was incurred. Among these were
the following:
re-engineering of the Ministry of Health
institutional Strengthening of the Personnel Department and the Service
Commissions Department
the procurement of Business Intelligence Tools for and the restructuring of
the CSO
Institutional Strengthening of the Ministry of Planning and Sustainable
Development
Outfitting of a computer Laboratory for the Public Service Academy
190.
Other critical initiatives which were geared towards the building of capacity
within the Public Sector and which were funded by General Revenues, were addressed in
2013 with a total allocation of $128 million, of which $98.9 million was expended.
Among the key achievements were the following:
continuation of training at the Auditor General Department in the areas of
IDEA, IPSAS, Value for Money Auditing and IFRA
completion of initiatives by the Parliament with United Nations
Development Programme (UNDP) funding, targeting regional networking,
strategic planning and the strengthening of the Parliament‟s legislative
function
