ArmInfo. The main motivation for reducing the number of ministries is to reduce corruption risks. The Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan stated this during a live broadcast on Facebook.
According to him, the more authority, the higher the risks of corruption. "Procedures in the public administration system should be as transparent as possible. According to international standards, in the public administration system it is accepted for 9-11 employees to have one manager, we have this ratio of approximately one to three. We have departments in ministries where there are leaders and their deputies, but there are no employees, "Pashinyan assured.
According to him, the reduction will affect primarily the management team, the number of deputy ministers will decrease. "The most important task of the optimization process is to ensure decent salaries for public sector employees. If we have 18,000 employees and we want to raise salaries for all, then we must spend huge financial resources. At the same time, we don't need such a large number of public sector employees," he said.
Pashinyan urged not to consider the state administration system as an employment agency. "As a result of this approach, the country may be in crisis," he assured, citing the example of the ministries, where the level of wages had already been raised by optimizing.
According to him, this process also has a functional meaning. "There should be no duplication in the public administration system. Thus, the Ministry of Transport, Communications and Information Technologies, and the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Development are concerned with roads in our country. There are many such examples," the Premier noted.
He substantiated the expediency of combining the ministries of culture and education and science, pointing to the example of other countries where these departments are combined: "This practice exists in Austria, Germany, Iceland, Finland. I believe that culture has practical significance, namely, raising the educational qualification of citizens That is, culture, in the first place, has an educational value. "
Pashinyan noted that he considers it expedient to unite the ministries of economy and agriculture, as both departments deal with exports.
"It is necessary to optimize procedures to make the process more efficient. The creation of the Ministry of High Technologies and Industry is important, as this sector is our priority," said Pashinyan, noting that the restructuring of the ministries was already discussed in the government and will be discussed in parliament