Self-Governments

ISFED reacts to the statement of a non-governmental organization CIDA about the processes of competitions and certification in local self-government agencies, published on March 9, 2015. It became known that due to problems of transparency and fairness identified in the process, CIDA’s Executive Director Zviad Devdariani decided to leave the committee for competitions and certification. 

ISFED has been monitoring the process of competitions and certification in local self-government agencies since October 2014. Based on the monitoring results, ISFED shares the position of now former member of the committee about problems of transparency and fairness, including obstruction of monitoring, ambiguous criteria of selection of candidates; deficiencies in competition regulations, the need to videotape interviews and poorly designed tests that are not reflective of professional qualifications required for a particular position. 

ISFED believes that the problems identified through the monitoring had negative impact on transparency and fairness of the process. 

ISFED agrees that possibility of monitoring was limited. In particular, ISFED was not allowed to monitor the process of interviews in nine self-governing territories. It had a limited access to interviews in five self-governing territories. Further, none of the self-governing territories gave ISFED access to the process of final decision-making, meaning that we were not able monitor how committees made final decisions for selection of candidates. 

The statement also highlights problems like ambiguous criteria for selection of candidates and general regulations for administering the process of competitions/certification that did not provide important details. ISFED agrees that the foregoing problems question objectivity of the process of selection of candidates and final decision-making; it also contributed to a number of complaints filed by candidates. Due to the lack of detailed regulations for administering the process of competitions/certification, ISFED’s observers faced problems with respect to monitoring and accessing information. 

Before the process of competitions and certification began, ISFED stressed the need to record interviews on video for the use of these video recordings as evidence. 

ISFED agrees that tests were poorly designed and did not reflect necessary professional qualifications required for a particular job. ISFED published its comprehensive and detailed recommendations about the process of testing as early as in December in its first interim report. 

Results of ISFED’s monitoring have revealed ambiguous practice and deficiencies in applicable regulations, which had a negative impact on overall process. The fact that certain public concerns have not yet been address confirms that the system is flawed. Therefore, thorough assessment of the degree of fairness and transparency of the process of certification and competitions or fairness of final decisions made is impossible. 

ISFED published two interim reports and several statements about the process of certification and competitions. We continue to monitor the process and will provide updates about trends and problems identified on a periodic basis. 

ISFED is ready to provide legal consultation for everyone who believes that their rights have been violate din the process of competitions and certification.