The prime minister stressed that optimization of the work of state authorities in Ukraine is necessary for the efficiency of state and budgetary savings.
“As a result, we are moving along the path of public administration reform as a whole, and government reform is just the tip of the iceberg, which is just very evident,” – Shmyhal said, answering a question about the continuation of the reform of the Cabinet of Ministers structure.
According to him, each ministry carries out a self-assessment of functions and studies which functions play a decisive role today and which ones can be abandoned or reduced. As this process progresses, the government will make a decision to reduce or, conversely, expand a particular department.
“This will not be a reform when we reformat everything momentarily. We plan to move step by step as some decisions are ready. That is, in one day we will not liquidate a group of ministries. This reform should lead to better management and delivery by state services, and not at a brilliant pace, which we will then digest for several years, ” – the prime minister said.
Journalists reminded him that this was not the first time they had tried to reform the government under President Volodymyr Zelensky: Ministries first already unitedbut then disconnected again.
According to Shmygal, this is why the authorities are now “in no hurry”, but are making “a thorough analysis of what happened” – both in Ukraine and in other countries.
“We took 30 states, analyzed where and how many ministries. In developed countries there are 12-15 ministries, and that’s enough. The question is the strength of the minister and the correctness of the functions that the ministry should perform. And what is very important: the minister should not be distracted by the management of the economy. The ministers should formulate the policy and the agencies, services, state-owned companies should be in charge of the real sector. Then the government will be effective. Actually, this is the essence of the reform, – summed up the premier.
The government and the Verkhovna Rada intend to do this optimize the state apparatus to cut the number of civil servants at least double, by about 100,000 people, Forbes reported in the summer.
According to media reports, the authorities plan a massive reorganization of the government structure, as a result of which 14 ministries will remain in Ukraine. In early December, the Cabinet already merged the Ministry of Infrastructure and the Ministry of Regional Development.
Shmygal announced construction of the Government Center in the first half of 2023, which will deprive the ministries of a number of functions at their service: the personnel department, accounting, document management. According to him, this will allow “bring down huge costs”.
