Skopje, 18 September 2023 (MIA) - It is time to finally pass the long-awaited laws which are of great importance for the reforms in public administration, Minister of Information Society and Administration Azir Aliu said in an interview with Portalb.  

"Law on senior civil service, law on digitization agency, law on administrative officers, law on public sector employees, law on media. These are some of the laws that must be adopted in the coming period, as part of the public administration reforms and the digitalization of services, and thus improve the score 3 that the Republic of North Macedonia received in the screening report from the European Union," said Aliu.

He notes that a "one point for services" is soon expected to be opened in all branches of the National Post, and in the meantime, he noted, "create additional mechanisms to make institutions use the interoperability platform, which so far they used at will, despite a legal obligation."

According to the Minister, the so-called 'Balancer' instrument, i.e. software which determines the proportion of public employees from each ethnic group, as a human resources tool, even if it is removed, it should be replaced with something else to protect the country's demographic structure. 

"There was a lot of talk about the 'Balancer' both in the country and outside the country. Both in terms of the abuse of the 'Balancer', and in terms of how much value the 'Balancer' really provides in our society. If we decide to remove the 'Balancer' as an instrument for the protection of citizens in the country, we must necessarily replace it with something else. There have been abuses and I believe there will be abuses in the future, but on the other hand we should not sit and say, ok, there are abuses, however the balancer will more or less normalizes the situation. I believe that with these three laws and with the approach that will be created or another new law to protect the demographic structure of the country, we should still work on this," Aliu said. 

Analyses are underway, he added, in terms of different forms of how the 'Balancer' can be improved or, if it cannot be improved, how to create a special law that will protect demography and the demographic structure, both in public administration and in accordance with the demographics in the country.

Photo: MIA archive