Administrative Reform Failed without Having Begun

Answering a question of The Day’s correspondent, People’s Deputy Dmytro Tabachnyk noted that the administrative, “or, even better, the administrative territorial” reform is one of the three most important problems for the next five years.

This answer made me ponder over the destiny of administrative reform, so much discussed by the reformers in recent years. Taking into account that Mr. Tabachnyk is not just a lawmaker and member of the presidential team but a top tier politician, his mentioning of “administrative territorial” reform means that the phantom of the latter is lurking somewhere.

This gives rise to a few logical questions to which it is not easy to give an unequivocal answer.

Has the administrative reform, the necessity of which was so much claimed by reformers, been carried out?

If so, what are its results?

If not, what is the sense in launching a new reform without completing the one already begun?

This writer had an opportunity not only to watch the course of reforms but also to feel its influence during the six years of work at a ministry which changed six ministers during that period. It should be noted that each minister was talented in his own way, wanted to improve the situation, and defended, as much as he could, the interests of his domain, but all of them worked in a system that simply did not allow them to reveal their individual aptitude and improve things in their domain. Hence the root cause of the current heavy situation in this country’s economy probably lies in the administrative system we have created, rather than in personalities. Let us try to trace this system’s evolution and its main special features using this ministry as an example.

The ministry was established immediately after Ukraine proclaimed independence. It was a little over fifty persons strong, and there was much work to do. Everything was being created anew: there was even no list of enterprises and phone numbers of executives. But each employee was entrusted with a clear task and told the range of his duties. There was no duplication, nobody to pass the buck to, and all decisions had to be made by the executive himself, who only in rare cases could consult a more experienced colleague from superior organizations. News about staff increases filled us with enthusiasm and hope. But, unfortunately, we found after the reorganization that it became much more difficult, and not easier, to work. Many internal documents and assignments appeared, often distracting one from resolving very important problems. The time saw the transfer of enterprises from the ministry to the State Property Fund and vice versa. All were doing their bit and worked hard, while the production output at our sector’s enterprises was falling more and more. Neither increased ministerial staff nor the merger of various ministries could stop the decline.

As a result of transformations, the ministerial staff rose from 50 to many employees, and the ministry itself turned into a huge and feeble governmental monster which worked for itself only.

“An extremely centralized and bloated executive apparatus, an all- embracing system of special forms and procedures to make the usual everyday decisions, the growing number of various meetings to prepare such decisions, and the transfer of the arising problems from one department to another. Final decisions were put off ad infinitum , for each administrator strove to avoid responsibility. This resulted in the loss of cooperation for an indefinitely long time until two Sundays come together, with the forward lines of activity, where such problems arise.

“When the apparatus becomes too cumbersome and complex, when information must pass several intermediate stages to go from the line of outer contacts to the center, when meetings are held almost incessantly, then the pain gets blunt. This procedure is especially ruinous when there are persons who, in order to cling to their current job, keep unpleasant information back from their superiors.

“As a result of all this, problems were only resolved halfway, and nobody assumed responsibility for it. This created an atmosphere of overall irresponsibility and led to a stiff and inflexible system based on a false interpretation of unanimity.”

These symptoms are described in K. Tateisi’s book The Eternal Spirit of Enterprise and dubbed the syndrome of big business. To my mind, they most exactly characterize the condition of our administrative system.

The remedy for these symptoms is well known: they can only be cured if society demands reform of the system.

What shall we do in this situation: admit honestly that the administrative reform has failed without having begun, or report the successful end of its first stage and then continue to do the same, only with adding a new prefix, administrative territorial?