Kyrgyzstan's Cumbersome New Cabinet
Kyrgyzstan's Cumbersome New Cabinet
The new government structure in Kyrgyzstan is ill-conceived and will lead to even greater inefficiencies than before, say NBCentralAsia political observers.
On February 6, the Kyrgyz parliament approved a new government structure following the appointment of Prime Minister Azim Isabekov on January 29. It has become a tradition that incoming prime ministers structure the cabinet as they want, and the result this time is 14 ministries, five committees and 12 agencies. By way of comparison, the outgoing government had 13 ministries, two state committees and seven administrative departments.
Given that state committees have the same powers as ministries, Kyrgyzstan is now a world leader in terms of the number of ministries, says opposition member of parliament Kanybek Imanaliev. Only China, Turkey, Russia and a few other countries have more.
Imanaliev doubts the latest changes will improve the administration of the state.
Since independence in 1991, he said, Kyrgyzstan has had “a cumbersome bureaucratic system with a huge number of officials”, which has not resulted in economic development.
“Efficient economic performance growth does not depend on the number of ministers or bureaucrats. And in the case of Kyrgyzstan where there's no economic growth, it’s illogical to be bumping up those numbers,” he said.
Other observers are more optimistic and believe the new government structure might improve performance. Creating more ministries does not have to mean increasing staff numbers. Tamerlan Ibraimov, director of the Centre for Political and Legal Studies, suggests that while there are now more ministries, the number of people they employ could actually be cut, ensuring better efficiency.
Sapar Orozbakov, director of the Centre for Economic Analysis in Bishkek, doesn’t agree. The whole system of government is so “poorly thought-out and illogical”, he says, that even personnel cuts would have little impact on its performance.
Orozbakov believes Kyrgyzstan should have no more than ten ministries if government is to become more efficient. If that were the case, one could then talk about making real savings on running costs and paying higher wages to a slimmed-down staff as an incentive to produce better work.
(News Briefing Central Asia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political observers across the region.)
On February 6, the Kyrgyz parliament approved a new government structure following the appointment of Prime Minister Azim Isabekov on January 29. It has become a tradition that incoming prime ministers structure the cabinet as they want, and the result this time is 14 ministries, five committees and 12 agencies. By way of comparison, the outgoing government had 13 ministries, two state committees and seven administrative departments.
Given that state committees have the same powers as ministries, Kyrgyzstan is now a world leader in terms of the number of ministries, says opposition member of parliament Kanybek Imanaliev. Only China, Turkey, Russia and a few other countries have more.
Imanaliev doubts the latest changes will improve the administration of the state.
Since independence in 1991, he said, Kyrgyzstan has had “a cumbersome bureaucratic system with a huge number of officials”, which has not resulted in economic development.
“Efficient economic performance growth does not depend on the number of ministers or bureaucrats. And in the case of Kyrgyzstan where there's no economic growth, it’s illogical to be bumping up those numbers,” he said.
Other observers are more optimistic and believe the new government structure might improve performance. Creating more ministries does not have to mean increasing staff numbers. Tamerlan Ibraimov, director of the Centre for Political and Legal Studies, suggests that while there are now more ministries, the number of people they employ could actually be cut, ensuring better efficiency.
Sapar Orozbakov, director of the Centre for Economic Analysis in Bishkek, doesn’t agree. The whole system of government is so “poorly thought-out and illogical”, he says, that even personnel cuts would have little impact on its performance.
Orozbakov believes Kyrgyzstan should have no more than ten ministries if government is to become more efficient. If that were the case, one could then talk about making real savings on running costs and paying higher wages to a slimmed-down staff as an incentive to produce better work.
(News Briefing Central Asia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political observers across the region.)
