Fico's reforms

It rarely happens, that a Friday's-night political news item causes me to feel amused. Well, being first slightly confused of what I was hearing:

Slovakia's Prime Minster Fico's giving in to the truck drivers demands - although he denies giving in to pressure; while on Sunday he was adamant on anything, on Monday morning he not only gave in, he even informed the public that it was his cabinet's months long preparation to implement such. Not very credible, but that's his problem.

The big scheme which Robert Fico put together was to lower taxes on diesel, in order to lessen the burden of the electronic toll system (as I will probably dedicate another article on this one in the near future as well). To compensate the loss of state revenues resulting from this, Mr Fico will decrease the number of ministries. To be exact, two ministries will be absorbed by others. By making drastic cuts in the number of departments may seem a reasonable measure to save on bureaucracy, yet there is a peculiar rationale behind it.

By shuffling an entire department under the roof of another one (mind you; in theory!), is not necessarily a cost saving exercise. The competencies still need to be performed, which means that you hardly kick out the entire civil servant force on the street. At the most, only the logo on their letterhead will change.

The second - and in my view, the most striking improbability: Mr Fico indicated, that the changes will take effect after June, that is after the election.

As far as I can remember, I have never witnessed, that a sitting leader has ever dictated a future cabinet, which number of ministries under which ever possible constellation it can have. In my view, this is rather a smoke curtain - or a carrot on a stick - rather than a credible government measure to make a connsiderable contribution to the state's treasure.

When seeing the poker faces of the Prime Minister, Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs, you get a feeling that this is a pre-election joke, or a test; who can tell the biggest bogus without bursting out in laughter. To effectively compensate the negative effects on the treasury chest, you need more; curbing your own corrupt methods and rule as a genuine statesman. But alas, that seems too far fetched.

MS