Editorial: Building an effective government

Government efficiency has always been criticized in Taiwan. Yesterday, President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) lashed out at the government's administrative culture and lack of efficiency. He cited the construction of Taiwan's first seaside park in Hualien as a textbook case of government run amok. The park's license application took 10 years and more than 2,600 chops and stamps to be processed. Chen apologized to the park authorities for the lack of efficiency.

The Hualien park case, unfortunately, is the rule, not the exception. The response to the Pachang Creek (八掌溪) incident last year and the Amorgos oil spill in February were also classic examples of bureaucratic inertia.

On Tuesday, Cabinet ministers attending a meeting of Chen's nine-member task force said the chains of command within government agencies have been seriously jeopardized because many civil servants resist orders from their politically appointed superiors. The ministers urged quick action to resolve the problem.

Taiwan's civil service is in a decrepit state. Poor performance can be directly linked to the lack of incentives, political interference and corruption -- all of which have eroded the concept of administering according to the law. Civil servants enjoy extensive benefits, mandated by legislation, including job security, promotions and pay raises. Promotions are based on personal connections and seniority rather than merit. This has produced a culture where civil servants are afraid to take responsibility and try to involve as many other agencies as they can in their work in order to evade the blame in case of mistakes. Every day, civil servants sip their tea and wait -- wait for punch-out time, for promotion, for retirement.

Under the KMT's rule, every level of government was completely in the grip of party organizations. The party could override laws, while political influence determined promotions. As a result, there is no tradition of administrative neutrality. Since the DPP came to power, many bureaucrats have been resisting its command. The DPP's "greening" of the establishment [putting more party members into the government] has prompted more resistance.

Another long-entrenched problem is the confusion between political and administrative responsibility. In the KMT era, high-level political appointees always took credit for jobs well done, but never the responsibility for major mistakes, because the blame was laid on civil servants. The DPP government has swung in the opposite direction -- political appointees are blamed and fired for mishaps, while the administrative responsibilities of civil servants are often overlooked. The minister of economic affairs did not have to step down over his decision to halt construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant (核四) and for the consequent losses -- he called them the price of democracy. But the head of the Environmental Protection Administration was forced to step down after the Amorgos oil spill to take political responsibility, when the problems had obviously been caused by administrative negligence.

Without legislative amendments requiring effective management and other steps to invigorate civil servants, the bureaucratic machine will remain comatose. Without legislation ensuring political neutrality of civil servants at work, they will never be freed from political entanglements.