Accra (GAR), - Professor John Atta Mills, the Vice President, today said a compact, efficient and cost-effective public service is a strong determinant of a successful Vision 2020, the government's development programme. He, therefore, reaffirmed government's support for the on-going public sector reforms to complement efforts at making Ghana a middle-income nation by the year 2020. Prof Mills was supervising the signing of the performance agreement for 16 chief directors in Accra. The agreement primarily seeks to provide a clear system for evaluating the work of chief directors thus giving the citizenry and Parliament tools to scrutinize government actions. Directors and their ministers present were from the Foreign Affairs, Tourism, Food and Agriculture, Education and the Accountant-General's Department. The rest are the Trade and Industry, Roads and Highways, Office of the Head of the Civil Service and the Finance Ministry. Prof Mills said apart from the challenges of Vision 2020, other pressures from the country's growing democratic culture and the emerging world order have made the reform of the public service more appropriate. " As per the Vision 2020 planning guide-lines, the public service will need to operate under a new management culture whereby outputs are maximised in relation to available resources. " With the cold war over and the creation of the European market... we must create an efficient public service that is performance-oriented and which is responsive to the needs of foreign and local investors. The Vice President urged the directors not to allow the agreement narrow their scope of operation to the detriment of other important areas. He advised directors not to compromise their leadership role under any circumstance adding that they need to create a personality whose advice to his minister will always be respected. " A transparent relationship with your ministers will help to eliminate the antagonism and suspicion which sometimes characterise the relationship between politicians and bureaucrats."