UDOVICKI: The first phase of the rationalization of the public administration exceeds expectations

(Photo: mc.rs)

She added that, in order to ensure permanent changes during the second phase, the preparation and carrying out of the reorganization would need be done through strict financial plans.

- So, there were much fewer “firings” than the projected 14,500, and the reduction in the number of employees was greater. We didn't feign the rationalization like we did in 2005 and 2009, when we used large severance packages to “stimulate” the people to retire a day or a year earlier and so paid dearly to lose people – she stated in the article she signed for Politika.

She emphasized that Serbia was a step away from a permanent stabilization of finances and that there was need for only a little more frugality and the reorganization of the work which would make the savings made so far sustainable and lead to a significant improvement in the quality of public services, from administration to health.

- The bad news, however, is that this step is as big as a leap over an abyss, because the truly better organization of work can only be established if we change two bad and deep-rooted habits: the lack of systematic financial discipline and the confusion between form and substance in the supervision of the public administration – estimated Udovicki.

She reminded that it was exactly due to the lack of financial discipline that the reduction in the number of employees had had to be prescribed by law.

- We carried out parallel studies, started the dialogue and recognized where the system was least efficient and the biggest shortcomings regarding capacities. By doing this, we made an important step away from the powerlessness that the state had exhibited thus far in such situations – added the Minister.

According to her, if we want to secure even deeper and more permanent changes in the second phase, the preparation and carrying out of the reorganization will have to be done through the process of budget allocation, that is, strict financial plans.

- Institutions will need to merge, new technologies implemented, the networks of institutions and subsidiaries consolidated. To carry out these complex tasks, the law which counts the number of employees once a year is too blunt an instrument. It's useful for ensuring the always painful reduction in employment, but the vision and the planning of the reorganization needs to be expressed through the sole common denominator – money – pointed out Udovicki.

According to her, the new government should set aside not 100 but 200 days to carefully prepare the 2017 budget, together with a three-year expenditure plan, like it has never done before.