Deputy Minister of Information Society and Administration, Aleksandar Bajdevski, at the Conference “Like elections – like future”, organized by CIVIL –  Center for Freedom, stressed that the Ministry of Information Society and Administration is actively working on depoliticization and professionalization of the public administration, with the purpose for it to be in service of all the citizens and to never be misused for party purposes.

“The Ministry of Information Society and Administration is currently working on the horizontal functional analysis, and there is also work on the vertical functional analysis in all the state administration bodies. This way we will also know which institutions have competencies that overlap each other, and to which institutions they are accountable to. Then there will be a reorganization of the public administration, which is a precondition for increasing the efficiency and effectiveness, for cost reduction and improving the quality of the services that the institutions offer to the citizens and companies”, outlined Bajdevski.

The Deputy Minister pointed out also the activities in relation to providing a professional management service.

“We know that pressures on employees usually come from the management, that is, the management structures. Therefore, in this past period we have been working on the Law on senior management service, presented for a public debate and already published on ENER. The Law envisions completely new standards for the election of managing officials in the country, something that until now not only has not been implemented in North Macedonia, but moreover, with this law we are the first in the region. We anticipate serious mechanisms and criteria, while the evaluation of candidates for high-level management will be conducted by experts in that field. A commission for high-level management will be selected, and the election of the commission will be carried out in Parliament, in a similar procedure as the election of the SCPC members was performed”, said Bajdevski, adding that the commission will be tasked to conduct evaluation, scoring and interviews of all candidates for managerial positions, and in this way allowing the citizens to be sure that the management service fulfils the criteria needed for executing that function.

As Bajdevski said, the process will be public and transparent, with which finally the image of the public administration will change, while the employees will be able to be sure that their superiors will not abuse their position for party and electoral purposes.

The Ministry of Information Society and Administration has also published a tool on its website, where pressure at the workplace during the campaign for the upcoming election of president can be reported. So far, as Bajdevski stated, they have not received a single report for abuse in the public administration.

Маја Ivanovska
Camera: Trpe Stojanovski
Editing: Arian Mehmeti
Photography: CIVIL Team