On June 19 GYLA held a presentation of a research the Practice of Providing Bonuses in Public Service in Georgia and Abroad.
While working on the research GYLA applied to Georgian ministries, the Government Chancellery of Georgia, the Presidential Administration and the Parliament of Georgia, requesting access to public information about applicable legal acts that regulate procedures for awarding bonuses within individual agencies, as well as information about the amount provided in bonuses from October 1, 212 to April 1, 2013 (to January 1, 2013 in case of the parliament).
The research has uncovered the following problematic issues:
• Majority of administrative agencies targeted by the research has not set of rules that apply to provision of bonuses to public servants.
• Decisions lack substantiation that would specify concrete achievements and contributions that served as grounds for providing individual public servants with a bonus
• Bonuses are an essential part of public servants’ labor remuneration in Georgia and their amount is significantly higher than average amount of bonuses in developed countries throughout the world
Based on the research and the analysis we elaborated the following important recommendations:
• Applicable legal base must me improved and supreme agencies of the government authorities must determine a legal framework that would regulate provision of bonuses to public servants. The legal act should provide general criteria; regulate the frequency of issuing bonuses as well as its minimum and maximum amount, rules for evaluating employees, etc.
• Based on the legal act and for the fulfillment of the legal act, individual agencies should annually determine both general and specific goals for every public servant, as well as other criteria that would serve as grounds for evaluating the work done by a public servant, and awarding him/her with a bonus as an incentive;
• Each individual-administrative legal act that serves as grounds for awarding bonuses must be accompanied with a due substantiation pursuant to stipulations of the General Administrative Code of Georgia.
The research was carried out by GYLA within the frames of the project Promoting Accountability and Transparency in Georgia, funded by the Open Society Institute Foundation.
