Since the 1980s, administrative reform has become a catchword for numerous
countries. According to Pollit and Bouckaert (2000), a wave of civil service reforms
swept across many of the OECD countries since the 1980s, reshaped the manner in which
public budgets are managed, considerably altered many lives of public officials, and in
some countries a number of previously public- owned enterprises have been privatized.
They assert further that resultant from the reforms, “large claims have been made for ‘savings’ and ‘efficiency gains’” but are quick to add that such claims are “seldom straightforward and uncontestable.” The picture is not that different in the developing world.