Decreasing the number of ministries endangers many jobs

In meetings held between these two political subjects, where reaching an agreement on forming the new government is being negotiated with reducing the number of ministries, according to the selection of the union of both and more ministries in one.

Both parties have already declared that they are aiming for the new government to have no more than 12 ministries, believing that reducing the number of ministries will not result in cuts or reductions in the number of civil servants.

Representatives of civil society, however, view this goal as somewhat problematic. Although they consider it necessary to reduce the number of ministries, they also believe the number of civil servants will be reduced.

The director of the non-governmental organisation “Arise”, Arton Demhayan, told Radio Free Europe that cutting ministries and joining them could therefore be forwarded to staff cuts.

It is pointless that such a large number of staff in the ministry, when they get together (two ministries in one) will remain the same and not be cut short. Each ministry has human resources, there are officials for information or other positions that in a united ministry need not have so many staff. This will be the main challenge and challenge of unifying ministries rather than joining its political staff or uniting ministries”, Demhaja says.

The number of employees in the public sector is about 82,000. The average public sector salary, according to the latest data from the Kosovo Statistics Agency, in 2018 was 573 euros.

Medjide Demolli-Niman, director of the FOL Movement, in a proposal for Radio Free Europe, says the ministry has many employees with contracts on the work, which, she says, with the reduction of the number of ministries could be reduced as jobs.

The reduction of the number of ministries will reduce the number of employees. The ministries have announced competitions in recent weeks, which has led us to think they need workers, so perhaps with a real strategy, each worker will be arranged so that there will be no massive escapes of workers from work”, Demoll says.

Demolli, stresses that Kosovo needs the Law on Government, which, according to her, would regulate the number of ministries and many other issues.

Meanwhile, Arton Demhay, says that in the event of staff cuts, the discontent of the servants would increase and major problems would arise.

“Even indictments can be filed if people leave work, they have contracts with the ministries and the moment they can leave, they can sue the government and win the case because it is not their fault that the government has been constantly experimented with, sometimes increasing the number of ministries, sometimes by reducing. So it takes a Law for the Government, employees are not guilty and that's why this is the main problem”, Demhasey says.

Meanwhile, in a study conducted by the Institute for Advanced GAP Research said that with the government's reduction according to the election promises of Vetevendosje (LVV) parties and the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), according to calculations, Kosovo's budget would save about 15.5m euros for a governing mandate.

European Union officials have consistently called for reforms in the public administration in Kosovo, as one of the criteria for aspiring countries that one day want to receive EU membership candidate status.

Civil society representatives have stressed that public administration is overcrowded with supporters of political parties, and that is why competent institutions are neglecting public administration reform.

Many official positions in public administration in Kosovo were consistently considered unnecessary by civil society representatives. They had stressed that employing persons in public positions, with or without need, also connects with political agreements that parties reach during the time of forming ruling coalitions.

In research done by local and international organisations in Kosovo, it was stressed that family ties, bribery and party ties are the most important factors to provide a job in Kosovo's public administration.