On February 3, the Parliament of Kyrgyzstan approved the post of Prime Minister Ulukbek Maripova and the staff of the Cabinet of Ministers proposed. A new government structure was also approved, which involves serious reform of the public administration system - so, a number of ministries and departments are planned with the transfer of their functions to other state structures. In this case, the crisis in the country puts the new cable mass of urgent. Whether he is ready to cope with them, and how timely the structural transformations, the correspondent "Eurasia. The expert found out from experts from Kyrgyzstan -Seradil Baktigulov and Azamat Temirkulov.
Expert on the issues of state administration Sheradil Baktygulov:
- What decisions of which economic or social tasks should be expected from the government of Ulukbek Maripov in the first place?
- It is expected that in April in Kyrgyzstan, a new constitution will be adopted, which will adequate to accept the new executive structure. That is, after the referendum, it will be redone the entire system of public administration. So far, it is not clear what it will be, because at the moment there is no approved draft of the most basic law - various options are discussed, but which one is final, is still unknown. So, the current government is a purely technical cabinet of ministers with a three-month period. Its composition is quite scattered.
There is not a single person in it who would have passed the professional way to bottom to go. There is no people who were previously seen in the generation of creative ideas or software solutions. Therefore, by the Government of Maripova, no one expects solutions to social and ehnamic problems. They have another task - to break everything that is possible in the system of public administration. At the same time, the structure proposed by the Prime Minister is not justified. Why is this done? No forecasts about the consequences - what will this lead to?
As long as we are talking only about the mechanical reduction of the structure, in which, in fact, is maintained by the same not only the amount of work, but also the number of personnel in the public administration system. That is, it is a mechanical mixing, which is not a reform of the control system.
- Is it possible to find some positive aspects in these changes?
- I do not see any positive in what is happening. Reducing the number of ministers, in my opinion - is a very dubious benefit. For example, united the ministries of finance and economy, but the tasks of each of them remained the same. That is, in fact, the Ministry of Economy will simply become the Department of Economics, therefore, a large reduction in the apparatus should not be expected in both places or in the center.
As for the education system, the proposed transformations, in my opinion, are generally nonsense. How can you transfer the management of the formation of the Academy of Sciences? The task of academics is science, and the Ministry of Education is engaged in mass enlightenment of the population so that the people are competent. I don't see anything positive, first of all, because there is no logical explanation, why and why all this is done.
Advisor of civil servuel III class, doctor of political sciences Azamat Temirkulov:
- How do you assess the potential of the government of Ulukbek Maripova? What should be expected from him?
- I believe that they will be engaged in changing the structure of the government, that is, most of their term will go to organizational issues. Accordingly, there will be some period of objective disorder in government agencies, that is, their efficiency will decrease even more. I have a big doubt that even their structural transformation activities will be effective and will give an expected output result in three months.
As for the solution of socio-economic problems, here I do not feed illusions at all, given that we know all the people appointed in the new government. All of them have a track record of work in government agencies, therefore, as they worked, they will work. I do not think that you can expect something radically new.
- What are the prerequisites for the undertaking structural transformations and reforming the system of government administration?
- In my opinion, conducting state reforms in the context of the global economic crisis and a pandemic, when in parallel there are serious security issues at the international level, fraught with serious consequences. Any government reforms are a perestroika, which for a certain period leads the control system to chaos and confusion, that is, negatively affects the effectiveness of government agencies, and, of course, at the perception of power by the population.
In the current conditions, such perturbations can create serious negative moods in society towards what they make and what decisions are the authorities. Moreover, in those reforms that are offered today, I do not see any principal decisions.
It was expected that the transformation would lead to a reduction in bloated states, given that in some state structures we have a huge number of civil servants, but their efficiency is minimal. In fact, only signs are changing, changing the structure in places, mergers occur, in which the number of civil servants does not decrease, and the effectiveness does not increase.
Perhaps the purpose of the transformation is to fulfill the promises given by the president during the election race. Reforms were declared, and here they seem like, go. But I, for example, are incomprehensible to their goal and the essence. Moreover, I think that the proposed government structure has serious disadvantages.
- What exactly?
- First, this is the absence of an authority responsible for the environment. For Kyrgyzstan, ecology is a matter of not only the environment, social sphere and economy, this is also a matter of national security, given that 50% of water resources of Central Asia are formed in our glaciers. By the end of this century, we risk losing up to 80% of glaciers if they continue to melt the same pace as now. And this, in turn, will lead to the fact that we are inquiry in water conflicts with our neighbors.
Already now there is a tension, especially in irrigation periods, on the border with neighboring republics in the Fergana Valley, so the preservation of glaciers for Kyrgyzstan is a matter of peace and war.
That is why the issue of ecology - conservation of ecosystems, and, above all, forest ecosystems affecting the preservation of glaciers, should be in the first place for any government. In my opinion, it is necessary not to disband the agency - forestry to give in the Ministry of Agriculture, and everything else is in the Ministry of Emergency Situations, but, on the contrary, to increase its status as in other countries, including our neighbors.
The second serious defects - insufficient attention to the issues of the green economy, which is directly related to the preservation of glaciers. Our economy should be green, not because it is fashionable, but because for our country it is a matter of peace and stability. In recent years, a lot of work has been done in matters of green economy and the Ministry of Economy, and the Jogorku Kenesh. The concept and program of its development was adopted, agreements with international partners were achieved. I replied for this work by the Ministry of Economy, now if it will be merged with the Ministry of Finance, the implementation of this direction will be under a big question, the green economy can be lost. In my opinion, these are two very important points, and the fact that they did not take them into the new structure of the government, I am verylarming me.
- How will the republic survive in the near future? What should the authorities pay special attention to?
- Now we are talking about the third wave now the newly mutated coronavirus. European countries are closed, there is a big risk that the closure of borders can occur in other regions, and in such a situation Kyrgyzstan must first think about security, and not about some ephemeral economic development, which we could not achieve even in the best years world housekeeping, and not about attracting investors - in the next couple of years they should not be expected at all. No need to spray efforts to such popuistic things.
First, you need to concentrate on food security, given that our country is very much depends on the import of food, primarily from Russia and Kazakhstan. Now we need to decide how we will provide food security in the event of the closure of borders.
Secondly, you need to think about national security. We see that the International Security Structure collapses. Potsdam's world, who was based on the security architecture, built after the Second World War, collapsed literally before our eyes. There is a tension in relations between the United States and Russia, between the United States and China, between various regional players. Local conflicts are exacerbated.
In this context, we cannot but think about the National Security, because there are a lot of vulnerable points on our map. In addition, in our region there is unstable Afghanistan, in the north of which the Taliban has already created a bridgehead for a possible attack on Central Asia. Therefore, in my opinion, now the government should think about such risks, and only after stabilizing the situation in the world, in two or three years, we can talk about the reform of the economy, attracting investors and so on.
- Should you expect changes in foreign policy? What are the prospects for bilateral cooperation of the republic with strategic partners and interaction within multilateral formats, such as EAEU, CSTO, SCO?
- The strategic vector in foreign policy will not change radically or with any other government. The location of Kyrgyzstan forces us to take into account the realities of Central Asia, and the neighborhood with such countries as Russia and China forces the republic to take into account their interests in our region.
It is not excluded that economic or cultural cooperation with external partners will be intensified, which are not present in our region - the United States, Europe, Turkey. Intensification of such an interaction may vary from the government to the government, but in general, I think, that course, which our geography has identified, will remain unchanged.
Arriving Ksenia Koretskaya