Specificities of strategic management in the public administration of the Republic of Srpska

In public administration - whether at the state level or within any unit of local self-government - positions are predominantly held by politically elected individuals whose professional and experiential foundations for such responsible work are often questionable. Being a municipal head or mayor in one of the 64 units of local self-government, or being a minister in the Government of the Republic of Srpska, or a responsible person in a state agency, directorate, or public company, means being accountable to the "owner of the capital," that is, to the owner of budget funds - the citizens. It is the citizens, through their payment of taxes, duties, and contributions, who fill the budget and to whom results must be reported. Citizens have the right to receive increasingly better services for their money and to know whether mechanisms for sanctioning and rewarding managers are defined, as is the case in the private sector. They closely observe indicators of misuse, political manipulation, corruption, and all other possible irregularities within the budget, which they finance primarily through work in the real sector. The concept of "modern public administration" is a project that holds significant promise in terms of depoliticization, anti-corruption, prevention of misuse, and more responsible spending of public funds. The introduction of electronic public administration has opened the way to more transparent functioning of state institutions at all levels and has brought the model of state governance closer to the standards of the European Commission, for which the fight against abuse is a key priority. The authors propose a much broader application of strategic management models and experiences from the real sector to public administration management, as such an approach would strengthen strategic management within public administration and bring it closer to the true owners of the capital - the citizens who fund the budget that is being spent within an excessively large public administration system at all levels: the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the entities, cities, and local communities.