Size of Macedonian Bureaucracy Stays Mystery

Photo by: Larry D. Moore

Macedonia is in a muddle over how many bureaucrats the country of 2.1 million people employs.

According to the latest statement by the Minister of Administration, Ivo Ivanovski, given last month for the economic magazine Kapital, the country has 115,000 civil servants.
 
But Finance Minister Zoran Stavreski recently gave a figure of 90,000 in a press statement to the local media.

To add to the confusion, Stavreski’s predecessor, Fatmir Besimi, spoke of some 180,000 public servants, shortly before stepping down after the June general elections to become Defence Minister.

“Our experts are working on completion of the civil servants' register that should yield the exact number but I cannot give you any deadlines,” a source close to the Administration Minister told Balkan Insight.

The ministry was tasked with finishing the register by June this year. The failure of the ministry to meet the deadline was mentioned as a shortcoming in this year’s European Commission report on Macedonia that came out in October.

On Thursday, Balkan Insight was unable to reach the Minister or his deputy.

In his statement for Kapital, Ivanovski said the register was almost ready and he hoped it would be launched "within a few months".

The source from the ministry blamed the delay on the long time needed for various institutions to send in their forms to the ministry, listing their employees.

Most observers agree the country’s administration is too large and cumbersome; each government, instead of cutting red tape, has added to the total number of bureaucrats by employing party members.

Dragan Tevdovski, economic analyst and professor at Skopje's Faculty of Economy, says the government has been secretive about this issue.
 
“Despite various inquiries we still do not know many employees they have taken on in the last few years”, he said.

“International financial institutions suggest that a state like Macedonia [with 2.1 million people] should have from 50,000 to 60,000 public servants,” he added.

642,000 people are listed as employed in the country.

An additional problem is Macedonia’s responsibility to employ public servants from the ethnic minority communities on a proportional basis.

This provision was a key part of the 2001 Ohrid Peace Deal that ended the short-lived conflict between the security forces and ethnic Albanian insurgents. Albanians make up about one quarter of the population and so want to make up a quarter of the bureaucracy as well.

The Ohrid deal stipulates that each year Macedonia should increase the number of ethnic minorities employed in the administration.

The government on Thursday said it would soon take on another 300 workers in the civil service under this provision.

This year's European Commission report noted that the country has almost achieved proportional representation for Albanians in the civil service.

But the cost of all this red tape is dear. In this year’s budget of €2.5 billion, over €400 million will go on wages for public servants.