Ukraine’s government wants to reduce the number of state supervisory bodies and introduce transparency for hiring of state officials as well as launch a system of electronic governance in 2015, according to a new action program which the parliament plans to consider on Dec.11.
“Primarily, Ukrainian state authorities should meet the standards that exist in the European Union. Together with the EU we have set up the support group for Ukraine, with hundreds of experts working in it, who are capable to provide us with an opportunity to completely reload the public governance system in Ukraine, starting with the Cabinet of Ministers and the relevant ministries and ending with various central government agencies, regulatory bodies and local authorities,” Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said at the Cabinet meeting on Dec. 9.
The program suggests to cut the state regulatory bodies from 56 to 28 and their functions – from 1,032 to 680, according to Yatsenyuk. Moreover, this year the state apparatus was reduced by 28,000 officials and another 10 percent cut, which includes also public sector employees like doctors and teachers, is planned for 2015, he said.
The government will also submit to the parliament a draft law on civil service to introduce a competitive procedure of selection of government officials, according to Yatsenyuk.
The transition to electronic governance will be another step to more transparent system of public administration and Estonia which boasts successful experience of implementation of electronic system, will be helping Ukraine with that, Yatsenyuk said, adding that it should be done by the end of 2015.
“We must abandon the tons of paper that circulates in the ministries. We have set an ambitious goal – transition to e-government exceptionally, and it implies an ID for everyone in Ukraine, a digital signature and an electronic document circulation.”
