The government full of ministries, unnecessary luxury

Kosovo continues to have another Government with many ministries, leaving it behind in terms of the number, even the major European countries, civil society representatives say. According to them, this cabinet number is considered unnecessary luxury, which in turn has large expenditures from the country's poor budget.

Government Cabinet So far consists of Ramush Haradinaj prime minister, five deputy prime ministers and 21 ministers, who also have their deputy.

According to civil society representatives, this number of government cabinet has been created because of meeting the numerous party requirements the current coalition has.

Artan Demhay, from the Organisation for Democracy, Anti-Corruption and Dinjitie “Arise”, told Radio Free Europe, that all political parties of the current government coalition have promised to reduce ministries during the election campaign. While with the formation of government, the opposite has happened.

Not only did it not happen with the cutting of this cabinet, but in a way, there was an increase in the cabinet, because a ministry that existed has been divided into two ministries. Then a new minister was created. We already have more ministers than we did in the past government. And, normally, this overloads the Kosovo budget too much and unnecessarily”, Demhayan says.

The existence of this large number of ministries with the same responsibility has also caused the state budget to be charged and spent millions of euros paying staff to each minister, deputy minister and deputy prime minister, representatives of the “Movement say.

Zulfaj, the software manager in this movement, told Radio Free Europe that unless there is a party or coalition that wins most votes, the practice of the huge government cabinet will constantly be repeated.

This cabinet size tradition will follow. There is no doubt that it is unproportionate with the number of residents. There is no doubt that it is a burden to the budget and we have completely unnecessary dictatorships that have only been invented to accommodate people in positions”, Zulfaj said.

A promise to reduce the number of ministries, just 10 days before the Government was formed, had also expressed Behgjet Pacolli, deputy prime minister and minister of foreign affairs.

In a post in his private Facebook account, he wrote that Kosovo can be managed with only eight departments.

On the other hand, Artan Demhasa considers that joining some ministries would increase efficiency, since the same work would not be distributed to various ministries.

He thinks the Kosovo government could function with only 16 ministries.

While we have some ministries that directly or indirectly deal with the same issues, then this could be a conflict of competencies” and Demhaja said.

Even in 2011, the then government had established new ministries or had split in half some ministries from the preliminary government composition.

The past government cabinet consisted of 19 ministries, 2 ministries without portfolios, 3 deputy prime ministers and about 50 deputy ministers.

According to government officials' Kosovo Anti-Corruption Property Declaration forms, the prime minister's monthly salary totals more than 1400 euros, about 1400 is the prime minister's salary, while a minister's salary of about 1,200 euros, without including other charities.