Final Report - European Commission - Europa

48
Evaluation of EC Country Strategy: Albania
• the resulting high turnover and frequent understaffing – those competent staff who do join
often do so simply to acquire some training, and then leave for more lucrative jobs in the
private sector or with other donors. For example, the PMU in the MoPW currently has
two staff, instead of the planned 5, and no programme officers;
• the poor integration of PMUs and PIUs into departmental structures. The fact that PMUs
and PIUs work exclusively on one donor’s projects means that they are viewed as that
donor’s “property” by Ministers and the rest of the Department. They therefore tend to
function in a rather self-contained, non-strategic way, absorbed more in the task of
producing the documentation required by the EC rather than engaging in policy
development;
• the Programme Authorising Officer (PAO) function remains a political one (usually a
Minister or Vice-Minister); as a consequence supervision of Phare programmes is
irregular, lacking in technical expertise, and prone to political interference. Partly as a
result, the position of PMU director is also often seen as a quasi-political one (as well as
offering opportunities for patronage).
For some time there have been proposals to replace the PMUs with a Central Finance and
Contracting Unit. It is important to note that a similar system has recently failed in FYR of
Macedonia. There is very little transparency in the discussions surrounding this proposal. It
is essential that the proposals for reform of Phare implementation are developed within the
context of the wider public administration reform programme and are discussed with all major
donors in Albania.
Role of the EC Delegation
Past programme management
Recent reviews commissioned by the Delegation, as well as interviews with the Delegation
conducted by the Evaluators, and monitoring and assessment reports indicate that in the past
the quality of programme management on the part of the Commission was extremely poor. 78
In particular the reviews indicate that these failings led directly to severe and widespread
implementation problems that affected programme impact (see Chapter 2), (particularly in
infrastructure projects, accounting for a significant share of the overall EC programme).
In addition to the institutional and strategic problems described in Chapter 2, examples of
poor aid management presented in the reviews included:
• With few exceptions, consultants in EC projects performed extremely poorly. This in
turn was largely due to poor management and supervision on the part of PMUs and the
Delegation: there was very little willingness or capacity to control the quality of
consultants’ work; terms of reference were poorly defined; and budgets were often underresourced.
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“Internal Audit on the Police Training Academy”, 28 February 2001, Frank Sutcliffe (one of a
series of internal audits of infrastructure projects in the justice sector); “Internal Audit on the
Completion Works for Border Crossings at Tri-Urat and Konispoli”, Interim Report, February
5, 2001, Frederick W Sutcliffe; Examination of the Procedures in the Civil Works Sector for
the Implementation of Phare Transport Projects; Final Report; 9 September, 1999, Paul
Riembault; “Audit of Agriculture Projects”, Draft Final Report, April 2001, ADE S.A;
“Rapport sur le Reseau Informatique de la Justice en Albanie”, Bernard Magrez and Jean-Noel
Louis, April 2001. This list is not exhaustive..
Design studies budgets for roads represented a relatively small part of the amount of the works
contracts (0.4-1.7%). Examination of the Procedures in the Civil Works Sector for the
Implementation of Phare Transport Projects; Final Report; 9 September, 1999, P. Riembault.