Appointees Stewing in Their Own Juice

Government policy on the civil service is currently geared toward growing talent inside state institutions. Employees rise within the system.

The most capable of them, armed with a diploma from a third-rate Western university, are moved up the ladder, and every appointment is a step forward. Step by step, they become deputy ministers, ministers, heads of departments in the Presidential Administration, and so on. These are people who already shape government policy, and the country's future development depends on them. Strange as it may seem, I suspect that soon there will not be a single person in the government who has spent even two or three years working in manufacturing, in business, in health care, in a school, in science, or in agriculture. Yet these are the people who know the problems from the inside, who can understand what an ordinary worker, a doctor, a teacher, a farmer, or a small entrepreneur wants from them.

What are today's "Western-style" officials like? They are people who can save money on a translator and tell IRR from NPV. The second and third generations of homegrown officials are also well versed in behind-the-scenes games: whom to befriend, whom to marry. And most important of all, they have a knack for turning any figures into a handsome report.

The days when a state farm director, a miner, or a doctor could become a minister are gone. Today a minister's main task is not to plow fields, build factories, or lift the economy. The main thing is to set the right KPIs for his staff. We will see what comes of it, but I think it is already time to change the structure of the civil service. In my view, it needs more technocrats and people from business and the private sector.

In 15 years of the current civil service policy, I have yet to see any large-scale, conceptual reforms.