Research, Development and Evaluation Commission (RDEC) Minister Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) said yesterday that his agency would propose a plan to improve the government’s efficiency within three months.
Jiang said that Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) was very unhappy about the criticism leveled at the government over its lack of efficiency.
Taiwan declined in terms of “government effectiveness” in the latest Worldwide Governance Indicators 1996-2008 report released on Monday by the World Bank Group, receiving its lowest score since 1998.
In the report, Taiwan was still second tier in the category of government effectiveness, meaning that its performance fell between the 75th and 90th percentile of all nations, but its ranking had dropped to 22 from 17 the year before.
The Chinese-language China Times reported that Liu was angry with the chronic problem of government documents needlessly traveling back and forth among agencies.
One example cited was the failure of the Central Personnel Administration (CPA) to complete a draft proposal on a system of awards and penalties to supervise public construction projects five months after he gave the order.
“Under Liu’s instruction, RDEC has established a task force to study possible measures to enhance government effectiveness,” Jiang said.
The task force will work out solutions to bureaucracy problems based on the suggestions of foreign and local business associations over the past three years, Jiang said.
It usually takes from four to six months to complete the paperwork on a policy because documents might go through different agencies, Jiang said.
Jiang said that government officials should meet face to face so they can save time by solving problems on the spot instead of exchanging opinions in documents.
In related news, the CPA yesterday issued a press statement saying that it was set to deliberate on how to establish a system of awards and penalties after receiving the order from Liu.
Liu gave the order in February.
The CPA said that it received the document on April 8 and a documents were sent to related agencies to collect their opinions within a week.
It then referred the collected views to the Public Construction Commission (PCC) for reference before it drafted its initial proposal.
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