Olzhas Khudaibergenov, an out-of-staff adviser to the President, an economist of Kazakhstan, proposed reducing the number of civil servants from 98 thousand to 50 thousand as part of the fight against corruption. Such a measure, according to Khudaibergenov, will double the salary of civil servants.
And for certain categories, the so-called political civil servants, the economist proposes to increase the salary five times.
“This is just $69.7 million of additional costs per year. And how much can you save on $9.3 billion in public procurement? Or $23.2 billion in procurement of the quasi-public sector? And not only from the zeroing of corruption, but also from the reduction of inefficient spending,” the adviser to the President supposes.
At the same time, he agrees that just raising the salary will not be enough to discourage government officials from taking bribes.
“First you need to update the state apparatus, change the rules of the game, create an atmosphere of inevitability of punishment, and then raise the salary. But if all of the above is done and the salary is not raised, then we will quickly return to what we have tried to leave. It will be great that the updated state apparatus is full of those, who can be trusted, and deserves to be paid a good salary,” Khudaibergenov explains.
Based on his experience of cooperation with government agencies, Khudaibergenov concluded that corrupt officials are to blame for the bureaucracy that reigns in the country.
“Corrupt officials have actively contributed to this bureaucracy, and in different ways. Firstly, because of personal examples of corruption, that is why regulation is constantly tightening. Secondly, corrupt officials are the first supporters of unnecessary approval procedures. Honest people usually try to take responsibility, while corrupt officials try to divide it in order to achieve the effect of collective irresponsibility. This is the phenomenon when bureaucracy is a defense against inspection bodies. Thirdly, the idea of serving the country, the atmosphere of justice and the salary holds an honest official at work. A dishonest person only looks for an opportunity to steal, he/she doesn’t even need a salary. Therefore, corrupt officials are satisfied when salaries are low and honest professionals leave the civil service,” the adviser to the President emphasizes.
At the same time, he explains that 95% of civil servants’ positions don’t create conditions for corruption.
“They don’t even have anything to take a bribe, so the rest [5% of positions], that decide certain issues, set the tone. However, all of them carry the burden of the population’s distrust. And this is precisely what explains the phenomenon that everyone considers officials to be corrupt, but at the same time, everyone has an acquaintance who doesn’t steal for sure,” Khudaibergenov summarizes.
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