Photo: Made in CanvaFour new ministries, or a total of 20, in the new Government of Hristijan Mickoski are the result of the amendments to the Law on the Organization and Operation of State Administration Bodies, which were passed in the run-up to this year’s elections.
The reorganization of the executive branch was carried out in a rushed process and without public consultation, which left the impression among experts and the public that it was a reckless reform, for which no sound analysis was conducted on its benefits and the need to increase the number of state administration personnel, as well as how much this reorganization would burden the budget.
With the amendment to the law, proposed by then MP Hristijan Mickoski, the Ministry of Sports, the Ministry of Energy, Mining and Mineral Resources, the Ministry of Digital Transformation, and the Ministry of Public Administration were established, and some of the ministries were reorganized, such as the Ministry of Economy and Labor, the Ministry of Social Policy, Demographics, and Youth and the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.
Professor of Administrative Law and Public Administration at the Justinian I Faculty of Law in Skopje, Dragan Gocevski, believes that although the procedure for amending the Law on the Organization and Work of State Administration Bodies is legal, it was not only rushed, but also characterized by arrogance and abuse of the extreme comfort offered by the two-thirds majority in the Parliament. Gocevski says that this is not the first time that such a shortcut has been used to amend laws, and the last time it was used was by the previous government for this same law when the Ministry of Political System and Inter-Community Relations was formed, at the proposal of seven MPs.
“If the authorized proposer of amendments and supplements to a law is the Government or citizens, then the procedure provides for public consultations and expected feedback from the public on the proposal that should be submitted to the Parliament. However, if the proposer is an MP, and it is enough for there to be only one, then the President of the Parliament must ensure a debate in the relevant committee and then put the proposal to a vote before the MPs. The law provides that an opinion should be sought from the Government, but that does not have to be waited for, nor accepted,” says Gocevski.
The difference in the two cases of amending this law is that in the last one, before the elections, there was a technical government, with reduced powers, everything happened very quickly, and the law was reviewed in a few hours and passed in the middle of the night.
“The amendments to the Law on the Organization and Operation of State Administration Bodies were adopted without consultations with stakeholders, without obtaining the opinion of the expert public, without a prior in-depth analysis of the justification for the establishment of three or five new ministries, and therefore may have serious consequences for the functioning of the state administration,” says Danche Danilovska-Bajdevska, Program Director at the Metamorphosis Foundation.
She believes that no policy, and especially no law that is systemic and regulates several significant issues for the work of state administration bodies, must be changed in a closed, non-consultative process and points out that the reorganization of state administration as an exceptionally important process must be based on the principles of transparency, inclusion, and prior preparation of citizens for the systemic changes that are being initiated.
“One of the possible consequences of such a reorganization is a reduction in the already low trust in institutions, because in the lack of transparency—without public consultations, citizens and stakeholders may feel that their interests and needs are not being taken into account. Poorly implemented reforms and the rapid adoption of laws without thorough analysis may also result in implemented reforms that are not well thought out or are not appropriate for the specific needs of citizens and the administration itself,” says Danilovska-Bajdevska.
She believes that this creates both legal uncertainty and dissatisfaction among employees in the administration, which can affect their motivation and efficiency in their work. Danilovska-Bajdevska says that if we are guided by the current Strategy for Public Administration Reform (2023-2030), there was no need for such a reorganization of the state administration, but if the creators of public policies considered that there was a need, it is necessary that it be based on a detailed and thoroughly analyzed process, based on previous analyses and assessments of the functioning of the administration. The weaknesses in the current system should have been discussed with civil society and the expert public in order to provide explanations as to why some proposals are or are not acceptable.
“Unfortunately, the impression remained that the purpose of these developments was based solely on the fact that they were a pre-election promise. This feeling is also contributed to by the fact that the changes, i.e. the reorganization of the state administration, were made urgently, without consultations and after a shortened procedure in the Parliament, with the explanation that it is not a comprehensive and complex law, which is absolutely false. Changes based on pre-election promises can often sound attractive to the public, but if the stakeholders are not consulted, they can result in populist measures that do not bring real improvement in the functioning of the administration. This suggests that the main goal is to fulfill political agendas, rather than ensuring that the changes are actually necessary and sustainable in the long term,” says Danilovska Bajdevska.
There is no answer as to how much money will be allocated annually for the new executive administration
The Government, on the other hand, believes that the amendments to the Law on Organization and Operation of State Administration Bodies with the reorganization of a certain number of ministries and the establishment of four new ministries are one of the key pillars of the Platform 1198 election program, which should provide a functional system for citizens, capable of responding to the needs for a modern and precise approach to resource management, quality of life, and dynamic economic development.
“This reform was promoted to the public on March 24, as part of the election campaign for the parliamentary elections on May 8. During that period, a public debate was actually taking place through media outlets, during which there were no key remarks, but on the contrary, positive statements could be heard,” the Government said.
They point out that the amendments to the law have passed the necessary parliamentary procedure and have received support in parliament, far above the required majority.
“This reform, including the reforms from Platform 1198 regarding the abolition of the positions of deputy directors and the abolition of the balancer, is part of the key pillars of the election program that won a huge number of votes, won the elections, and received the support of the public. All of this indicates that this is not a reform in a hasty process and without public consultation, but a reform that was understood and accepted by the public within a sufficiently long time frame,” the Government’s position reads.
However, they do not inform us whether there is an analysis of how much money will be allocated annually from taxpayers to finance the work of the new executive administration. The Government did not respond to Meta.mk’s questions about how many new employees will be in the four ministries, and how many will be taken over from the existing ones. The ministries, although they should already officially be functioning and have been part of the current Government for several months, do not even have basic means of communication with the public, such as functional websites, telephones or e-mail for contact.
The Government also did not provide an answer as to whether the new institutions have premises where they will be housed, whether they will pay rent for them or not, and whether there are projections of what the current monthly costs for their operation will be.
Since the formation of the Government, accommodation has only been proposed for the Ministry of Energy, Mining and Mineral Resources, which will operate in one of the buildings from “Skopje 2014”, located right across from the Museum of Skopje, which was originally intended for ELEM, but due to a series of malfunctions and inaccessibility to the underground garages and parking lot, it has been unusable and unoccupied for years.
Professor Gocevski says that the need for reorganization of the public administration has been identified since 2017 through a project funded by the European Commission, but the proposals are aimed at reducing the number of institutions, not increasing their number. This also required conducting a functional analysis of the workload of employees in the institutions, so that conclusions can be drawn whether we have overemployment or underemployment, what kind of personnel are needed and in which institution. The reform was supposed to mean that ministries would only be policy makers, and agencies would be policy implementers and service providers, while the inspectorates would be responsible for controlling the legality of operations.
“For a country with 1.8 million inhabitants, 20 ministries are not justified. There is nothing problematic about having ministries with multiple departments that will have agencies that will cover those departments. There is no need to compare ourselves with other countries, because every country is different, but if we look at our history from 1944 onwards, most of the time we functioned with 14 to 15 ministries, even when Macedonia was a federal member. The question now is why we need 20 ministries and what we should get from them,” says Gocevski.
