There is practically no way to reform Belarusan system of government oriented towards solving situational problems; one can only reduce costs for its maintenance.

This opinion shared in the talk with the EuroBelarus Information Service the director of the scientific - research organization Centre for European Transformation Andrei Yahorau.

“We have been talking about state machine reduction for a long time. And these talks have been going on not only in the independent Belarus. The reduction of state machine was a traditional problem in the functioning of the Soviet system”, - noted the interlocutor.

However, the reduction itself has nothing in common with the reformation of the state administration, highlighted the expert. “As to reduce costs and try to make the costs of the administration cheaper at the expense of stuff reduction is one thing. Another thing is structural reorganization of the control system, when both the bureaucratic establishment of the Ministries and the general way of management organization in the country are changing”, - said Andrei Yahorau.

The expert believes the latest statements of Aliaksandr Lukashenka on this subject to be populist rhetoric with the implication “to reinforce and to intensify”: “Intensification and higher productivity are the slogans that don’t carry anything in the understanding of what should be done and in which direction the system should be changed”.

The interlocutor of EuroBelarus assumes that the reformation process of the government system should depend on the direction in which the country is going to move and develop. “And as there is no sensible movement and comprehension of what Belarus should represent in 20 or 50 years, then all the management is carried out not according to this line, but depending on the situational problems which appear in the economics, social life, politics and so on”, - stated the political scientist.

In order to solve different situational problems government system in the shape of a tough line of command has formed in Belarus, permitting it to carry out clear administrative commands from above, explained the expert. “In such situation any reform of management except further centralization looks totally impossible. And centralization has already reached its limit. That is why it is unclear what sense is put in the reduction of the Ministries’ personnel except resource saving”, - he said.

It is with the desire to save resources that yet another attempt to reduce state machinery is explained. “Belarus has an ultimate lack of budget funds for the development. And we have possibilities to keep the economy at ground level. But in order to develop we need much more funds than are available for now. That is why authorities try to find means to maintain system existence, its minimal development by force of cutback on costs; costs on the state machinery as well”, - noted Andrei Yahorau.