With executive branch staff still to be cut, the government has decided on second thoughts to increase the number of bureaucrats and the fleet of cars. According to a resolution of March 10, the number of the central and territorial staff in the ministries and agencies other than those of defense, internal affairs, and security, has gone up by 2360 compared to the original reduction target (the resolution of February 26 provided for a reduction from 200,295 to 180,724). But even this seemed too little. Another resolution, this time of March 25, added 360 more jobs, so now the executive is 183,444- strong, Interfax-Ukraine reports.
In addition, the March 10 resolution added 549 cars to those serving central executive bodies and the territorial agencies subordinated to them. Meanwhile, the February government decision called for the reduction of this fleet by 489 units. On the other hand, The Day was told by the government press service that this means reducing the cars attached to the Cabinet staff, while increases are intended for the car fleet of the police, customs service, and other similar structures in bad need of patrol, and escort vehicles.
In principle, the taxpayers, who are now to feed several hundreds more bureaucrats, would hardly be surprised at this Cabinet decision if its head were not thought of as an outright pro-market fundamentalist. In the first month of its work the government more than once declared it was determined to carry out administrative reform, one of its components being executive branch staff cuts. Moreover, Cabinet members repeatedly stressed that the government would try to drop the practice of its predecessors and create the market rules of the game rather than actively interfere in the process, that we must live within our means, and, hence, stop spending money for non-critical items (automobiles and computers) and waive privileges (including those for the army and police).But it turned out that even our most reform- minded government failed to avoid Parkinson’s law: the number of employees is on the rise, and the increment does not depend on whether the offices have been reduced or increased in number or even abolished altogether.
Of course, there is a grain of truth in the words of First Deputy Premier Yuri Yekhanurov that we have fewer bureaucrats per capita than other countries. But, first, we are not rich enough to afford the luxury of maintaining such an army of civil servants (the more so that, as Parkinson stressed, the quantity of the work bureaucrats do is in no way connected with the number of people who do it). And, secondly, any reform must be above all consistent and decisive. In our case, it might be either some hasty decision-making by a government that did not carefully calculate the real consequences, or some indecisiveness of that same government, owing to which the lower- placed elements can secure changes in their favor if they wish. We will know from the Cabinet’s next steps if it is ready to show determination or if its good intentions will remain just that. However, it is beyond any doubt that a simple reduction of civil servants’ number will by no means solve the problem of bureaucratic misrule: what is needed are qualitative changes in the work of the government machinery, including transparency of how it works. Unless this happens, the bureaucrat will remain not only a necessary evil, as is the case in the countries where society knows how to defend its interests from the state, but also the natural enemy of the taxpayer. It is worth noting that, according to the Auditing Chamber, it is the fiscal bodies that have seen the greatest expansion lately in Ukraine. This means we will be increasing the staff to collect more taxes and to maintain a bloated staff which will collect still more taxes... This has continued for quite a long time but it cannot continue forever, so we would like this government, which has embarked on the road of reforms, to traverse this road to the end. By the way, Murphy’s law, an everyday-life supplement to Parkinson’s, says, “if anything can go wrong, it will.”
INCIDENTALLY
The World Bank estimates that the number of civil servants in Ukraine is one of the lowest in the world, Viktor Lysytsky, governmental secretary to the Cabinet, said on March 29. “We’ve got them approximately 10 times fewer than other countries do,” Interfax- Ukraine quotes him as saying. The governmental secretary cited “World Bank official data” contained in a memorandum the bank sent Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko and the government. Commenting on the progress of the administrative reform in Ukraine, Mr. Lysytsky said this reform does not pursue the purpose of a mechanistic reduction of civil servants but is aimed at increasing the effectiveness of government. In his words, the effectiveness of governance should be improved “to ensure the implementation of reforms.”
