Project: Federal Government of Somalia Civil Servants Headcount/HR Audit
Background:
The Federal Government of Somalia launched the HR and payroll exercise in January 2018 to headcount and establish the correct number of government civil servants, and review its HR policies, systems and practices. Somalia, as a country, is going through positive transformation after more than twenty years of insecurity and state collapse, the results obtained from the headcount and review of HR policies and systems will be used to identify gaps in the current HR practices and policies, including payroll processes. The identified gaps will then be prioritized for attention to achieve and maintain competitiveness in key HR areas. This exercise also seeks to focus on ensuring identification of strengths and weakness of HR systems and processes currently in place in order to determine whether they align with FGS’s development aspirations articulated in the national development plan and strategic priorities.
The World Bank’s Capacity Injunction Program, recognizing the vital input such an exercise would provide to the state building efforts in Somalia, put out the bid to select a firm to carry out this project late 2017. Asal as a consulting lead in a consortium of two consulting firms won the competitive selection process and completed the project in about 9 months under very challenging political and security contexts.
Delivery and Outcome:
- Asal used baseline payroll data of prior month to establish reference point in determining civil servants on FGS payroll system
- Conducted interviews to capture civil servants’ demographic and payroll data
- Used mobile based technology to collect and store data
- Coordinated with government oversight and technical committees for guidance in ensuring transparency and meeting expectations of all parties involved, and on providing facilitation, mobilizations and audit preparation at the government institutions where civil servants were stationed.
- Conducted training for government committees on understanding audit methodology and tool usage.
After successful conclusion of FGS’s HR and payroll audit project, we established correct number of civil servants registered on the official government payroll, identified correct number of government staff off-payroll, and the process through which they are paid, evaluated HR policies in place and produced a list of missing standard HR policies with recommendations. Our work also resulted in an accurate assessment of FGS’s current HR systems or lack thereof, recommending the adoption of proper, industry standard HRIMIS along with comparisons with HR systems in use in the neighboring countries. We also provided in-depth analysis of FGS’s civil servants demographics including gender, age, and education distributions along with pay and grading mapping.
Based on our work, we expect the Federal Government of Somalia with the help of development partners to adopt corrective policies based on our recommendations such as introducing establishment controls for efficient use of salary expenditure, guidelines for creating new institutions and inclusions in the payroll, and disseminations of circulars and administrative orders.
