Uladzimir Kavalkin: Belarus is a leader by number of employees in state-run institutions

Without revision of all functions and all administrative procedures there isn’t much to say about debureaucratisation in Belarus.

During the previous optimization of state apparatus pensioners were partially cut down – namely those, who were working in local administrations directly with citizens and were resolving their problems. Ministries were less affected by “optimization of state apparatus”. Thus, mechanical curtailment without curtailment of state functions and analysis of the functions themselves happened, which didn’t affect debureaucratisation at all. One more plan for debureaucratisation of state apparatus ratified by the Council of Ministers is most likely to result in the same consequences.

Uladzimir Kavalkin, an expert on the problem of state service reform and the head of the “Cost of government” project within the BIPART project told about it in the “EuroBelarus” Information Service.

- Council of Ministers ratified a plan for debureaucratisation of state apparatus. What’s this plan like?

- We cannot name this document a plan, since it lacks concrete terms and concrete principal indicators. It can be called a document for internal consumption that calls for the officials to work in the frames of law. 90% of the document is references to the acting legislation and reminder to the officials – for their own promotion - about the need to observe the existing legislations as well as be sensitive to the citizens’ problems.

- Bureaucracy and bureaucrats are two sides of the medal. When pronouncing the message to the parliament and the people in 2015 Lukashenka was talking about the “redundancy of state apparatus” that should be curtailed by 10%. What did the previous “optimization of state apparatus” end in?

- Officials were curtailed, though the functions weren’t. The remaining officials are now doing the same work for the same money. The so-called “empty positions” were curtailed (they are usually left free for leaving the window for rewarding employees that proved to be better than others).Partially, pensioners were curtailed – namely those, who were working in local administrations directly with citizens. Ministries were less affected by “optimization of state apparatus”. Thus, mechanical curtailment without curtailment of state functions and analysis of the functions themselves happened.

Second curtailment is most likely to be mechanical, too and won’t probably lead to any serious changes.

- Can bureaucratization be eliminated, mechanically and insignificantly curtailing the number of officials or bureaucrats?

- No, it cannot. If we want to reduce the bureaucracy in the state apparatus, we should study business-processes: algorithms according to which officials are working. Without reviewing these functions and all administrative procedures there isn’t much to say about debureaucratisation in Belarus. When the number of appeals, nature of procedures, and time for each of them is measured, only then we can tell what number of bureaucrats in Belarus we need. And only after that we can plan the “required personnel”.

What we witness now is mechanical curtailment that doesn’t affect debureaucratisation at all.

- Are there certain standards that allow calculating how many officials does Belarus with its 9-mln population need?

- There are world indicators of proportion of officials to population, where Belarus has quite low indicator of state officials – 3.6% of officials to those employed in Belarus’ economy.

However, the question appears: whom should we count as an official? In other countries militia, firemen, teachers are also calculated as officials, why in Belarus they don’t. It is more correct to speak about the number of employees in state-run institutions, not only about officials. Otherwise the number of officials can be reduced on paper without reducing the number of employees in state-run institutions, which partially happened within the frames of the previous “optimization of state apparatus”, when state structures changed the status of their employees without changing the function.

But if we count the number of employees in state-run institutions, Belarus is a sad leader. Developed countries cannot allow themselves such huge number of employees in state-run institutions compared to those employed in economy.