Jiunn-rong Yeh, Chairman of the Research Development and Evaluation Commission in the Executive Yuan, told the ECCT monthly meeting at the Grand Formosa Regent of his government's plans to downsize itself and the significant changes in store for the present ministerial structure. The speech was titled "Cleaning House — the Government's Plan to Reform Itself." Yeh, a minister without portfolio, outlined the "Central Government Agency Organizational Basis Law", which was sent by the Executive Yuan to the Legislature two weeks ago.
Some of the changes expected include elimination, combination of or redefinition of overlapping agencies to save money and increase efficiency.
"We have downsized the number of ministries from 36 to 17, depending on how you look at it," he said.
According to the reorganization, there will be 13 ministries, four councils and up to five independent commissions installed.
The three factors behind the reform were better service, effective control of public spending and, to improve functions and efficiency.
Some of the original ministries such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will be changed to the Ministry of Foreign and Expatriate Affairs, which they say is "aimed at integrating resources efficiently to utilize available human resources in running foreign businesses under the unified authority."
He said its not all downsizing though."It's not only cutting all the fat, but also trying to change the government into a flexible one, so that whenever we need to empower anyone we can move faster."
Yeh said government downsizing has become one of the major issues in Taiwan.
"As you may recall a couple of weeks ago, the congress decided to cut the number of seats in half. Right now the cabinet is trying to do the same thing."
Yeh said that Taiwan has 36 government agencies while countries like New Zealand and Canada have 20. He even pointed to the lesser numbers of the neighbor across the Taiwan Straits.
"Even in China, after the recent reforms, there are 25 ministerial agencies."
"We are trying to change from 36 to 13, four and five. It's not only about numbers, it's also about function," he added.
"This will be the mission of our current government," he stated.
He said an award the Taiwan government won from Brown University for E-government was good, but that the government wouldn't rest on its laurels and still had a long way to go.
He said these were the ideas the government was trying to promote, e-government on one hand, and organizational reform on the other hand.
"The general idea behind it is integration and coordination. We try to reduce the number of agencies so that whenever you need to lobby you don't need to lobby 36," he said to the business leaders present.
"We will try to bridge the barriers, link the service of the government, and provide a one-stop service to the business community," he concluded.
Autor: David Smith
Quelle: The China Post, 30.09.2004
