Government plans to cut a third of ministries: a government centre is planned
4 March 2024 17:08
Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal said that the government plans to reduce the number of ministries by a third as part of the reform. He said this at a press conference on 4 March in Kyiv, Kommersant Ukrainian reports 
“We are working on changing the format of the government. In particular, we are reducing the number of ministries. We want to reduce the number of ministries by a third, reduce the number of civil servants,”
– the Prime Minister said.
The Prime Minister also noted that the government is working to create a Government Centre, where auxiliary and administrative functions will be concentrated.
“Ministries should formulate policies, and the Government Centre, in turn, will provide legal, personnel, accounting and other support,”
– the Prime Minister explained.
There are also plans to introduce “Diia” for civil servants.
The Ministry of Culture and Information Policy and the Ministry of Youth and Sports may be subject to government cuts, a source in the Servant of the People faction told hromadske .
Regarding the possible reduction of these two departments, the source said that it is “not surprising” that the ministries do not have heads. The source also added that the Ministry of Agrarian Policy may be merged with the Ministry of Economy.
Meanwhile, Golos believes that there will be no layoffs. A source from the European Solidarity party says that this issue has not yet been discussed among MPs.
It should be noted that in February, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that the government was discussing reducing the number of ministries and reformatting the government due to a shortage of funds.
The consolidation of ministries by merging several into one has been done before. In some cases, they had to be split back up.
Political analyst Ihor Reiterovych told Kommersant Ukrainsky noted that logically, if such a restructuring takes place, the leadership, in this case the Cabinet of Ministers, is often changed .
“This is a possible story, because we sometimes say that if you want to fire someone but don’t want to do it openly, start restructuring. And then, under the slogan of consolidation, unification or improvement, you can fire any person. Although I think it’s not so much about replacing Shmyhal, this can be done at any time, and it’s not a political issue, but an attempt to somehow optimise public spending, although it looks a bit dubious to me,”
– reiterovich said.
He understands that it is necessary to save on everything, but there are two important points in Ukraine, as in other democratic countries.
“When they start to cut the number of something, the number of public or civil servants working in the newly created ministries and departments actually increases. This sometimes happens. On the other hand, if we look at it from the civil service perspective, Ukraine today has one of the lowest proportions of civil servants in relation to the total population. Shmyhal told us about 20,000 vacancies that will be cut. It’s not so much about optimisation or saving money, especially since they don’t receive any super salaries now, and a lot of bonuses and allowances have been removed. Further reductions may lead to the fact that we will not have enough people to perform the functions assigned to them by the state. And this can be a problem,”
– the political scientist believes.
Reiterovich noted that it is necessary not to cut the number of employees mechanically, but to give some explanation that this can lead to increased efficiency or savings of public funds.
“So far, it all looks like a populist step that attracts the attention of our international partners,” he said,
– he concluded.
We would like to add that in November 2022, there was already talk of another concept for the Cabinet of Ministers, according to which there will be 14 ministries instead of 20. According to media reports, the Ministry of Community and Territorial Development, the Ministry of Infrastructure and the Government Office for the Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories have decided to merge into the Ministry of Infrastructure and Territorial Development.
The Ministry of Culture and Information Policy will be expanded to also deal with European and Euro-Atlantic integration and will be renamed the Ministry of European Integration, Culture and Information Policy.
The Ministry of Economy, the Ministry of Strategic Industries (partially) and the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food will be merged into the Ministry of Economic Development. The Ministry of Digital Transformation, the National Agency of Ukraine for Civil Service (civil service) and the Ministry of Strategic Industries (partially) will be merged into the Ministry of Digital Transformation.
The Ministry of Veterans’ Affairs and the Ministry of Social Policy will become the Ministry of Veterans’ Affairs and Social Policy;
The Ministry of Ecology will change its name to the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources.
The following remain unchanged:
- Ministry of Energy;
- Ministry of Foreign Affairs;
- Ministry of Finance;
- Ministry of Justice;
- Ministry of Internal Affairs;
- Ministry of Defence;
- Ministry of Education and Science;
- Ministry of Health.
It also provides for a reduction in the maximum number of staff in ministries and other central executive bodies (CEBs). In some cases, by more than half:
- in the central offices of ministries – from 9,200 to 2,800 employees;
- in the territorial bodies of ministries – from 17,000 to over 7,000 employees;
- in the central offices of other CEBs – from 13,000 to 4,300 employees;
- in terrorist bodies of other CEBs – from about 80 to more than 40 thousand employees.
