The public sector refers to the production, delivery and allocation of goods and services by and for the government or its citizens, whether at central or local government level. The public sector covers all government ministries and agencies of government.
Public Sector Management
Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning is responsible for budgetary and financial management.
The ministry has achieved significant success in upstream areas, focusing on planning and budget preparation. But it is still in a fledgling stage and faces many challenges, notably improving quantity and quality of staff and equipment, improving fiscal reporting and financial management.
There are still noticeable weaknesses in downstream areas of budget execution and accountability. Budget execution is not consistent with budget allocations; commitment controls, and monitoring and evaluations need to be strengthened.
A legislative framework for public financial management (PFM) also needs to be approved. Despite efforts to enhance domestic accountability and transparency because of the alleged malpractice among the public servants.
Given the significant amount of oil resources it would also be desirable for South Sudan to endorse the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) as many other African and also non-African countries have done
Roles of Public Sector
The role of the public sector includes the following;
- It oversees the economic development of the country
- It provides employment in the various sectors and also acts as a model employer in terms of staff welfare matters.
- It encourages balanced regional development as government services are available in remote areas
- The public sector provides the necessary infrastructure in terms of roads, railway, airports, and hospitals which are necessary to support the economic development of the country.
- The sector provides pubic services to the society and it is not driven by the profit motive.
- It is responsible for keeping economic development on the right course and therefore it can take corrective action in case need arises,
Challenges in Public Sector
The challenges of the public sector include the following:
- The sector is often faced with poor leadership of public servants due to inadequate training.
- The public sector is quite big and keeping sufficient and accurate knowledge is often a challenge.
- There is alleged corruption in the public sector.
- There is also limitation of resources necessary for rendering quality services to the public.
- Lack of commitment from public servants to deliver quality service.
- Public servants are often quite inefficient when it comes to service delivery
- Weak regulatory framework to guide the sector