A Review of Highway Agencies in the South Asia Region

A Review of Highway Agencies in the South Asia Region
agencies. In the end, the achieved values of the indicators should be reported to managers
within the agency so as to monitor performance and take action accordingly.
5.3 Phase 2: Monitoring and Improving Performance
Phase 1 should have resulted in the reforms mentioned above, including the collection of
basic data and information. The subsequent phase should aim at improving performance
in accordance with the annual performance agreement and the long-term strategy of
the agency. The input and intermediate outcome indicators, which are relatively easy to
implement, should now be monitored, and the agency should take action to align the
realized values with agreed targets, monitoring systems and procedures that have been put
in place.
Phase 2 should ideally start with the negotiation of an annual performance agreement
between the highway agency and its parent ministry. For successful and fruitful
negotiations, both organizations will need to build a knowledge base to ensure both
‘know what they are talking about’. In this way, the negotiations can focus on reaching
an agreement that is both acceptable and feasible in terms of the targets of the highway
agency as well as the obligations of the parent organization.
5.3.1 Reforms Internal to the Highway Agency
Availability of Appropriately Qualified Staff
Reform in the highway sector requires highway agencies to change the way they conduct
their business. Such a shift demands that the agencies improve the skill mix within
the organizations. The focus should shift from engineering skills to managerial and
financial skills that are needed to manage an agency centered on delivering a technically,
socioeconomically and financially sound network. The agency’s staff will need to design
financial structures, as well as understand the financial and socioeconomic implications
of technical decisions. They will also need to manage contractors and concessionaires to
ensure the organization’s targets are achieved and contracts adhered to. In short, this
implies that highway agencies should, besides recruiting engineers only, expand the skill
mix to include economists, planners, finance specialists, sociologists and environmentalists
as well.
Required Reforms
It should be understood that now that the highway agency is bound to a long-term strategy
and performance targets, it will need a different approach to planning. Planning can
no longer be narrowly focused on the detailed design of a particular project but on the
identification, prioritization and sequencing of capital and maintenance projects.
To acquire such skills, two basic reforms need to be implemented by the highway agencies
in South Asia. Firstly, a revision of recruitment rules, so that the agencies are able to
hire new staff independently through the market-based competitive process instead
of depending on centralized hiring, bound by the government’s stringent recruitment
program. This will demand that the agency develop well-defined rules for staff recruitment.
These rules need to be flexible to the extent that the agency is able to respond on time to
the requirements of maintaining or improving its performance. Flexibility also implies that
the agency should be able to terminate employment of staff in case of lack of performance.
Secondly, the highway agency will need to offer its staff a roadmap for career development.
To encourage staff members to contribute to the achievement of the agency’s targets,
staff members will need to be motivated. A well defined career growth path is one way
to motivate staff; a prime example is merit-based promotions. Another is protection
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