The Portuguese Government rose to power a little more than a
year ago. And with a clear mission ahead – to kick start and deploy a number of
urgent and much needed political and economic reforms, the only way to actually
step out of the current hazardous situation. A huge task – and one that takes
long. Still, one year into the term, results are disappointing:
- - Public Administration reform – still too departments,
many of them with blurred competences – still, a number of them have been
identified and extinguished, so, that is a start. But still, there isn’t a
clear individual performance system in place and no clear incentive to excel while
working for the State; there are still too many people working directly for the
State. Public Administration is still overburdening the economic with inefficient
spend and bureaucracy
- - Judicial reform – part of it is underway, with the
new judicial map. But a simplification of judicial procedures is still to be
put in place, resulting in too much bureaucracy, too much time for sentences to
be applied and an impunity sentiment.
- -Corruption – nothing is being done on this area
and there are disturbing signs that the current Government is actually
following the same trend as previous ones
- - Too much state in the economy – encouraging signs
with the privatization of several
companies already listed, but 2 huge problems remain: 1) a number of too
important and big companies still don’t have a clear profitability model that
allows for their privatization and are overburdening the State deficit (namely
transportation and hospitals); 2) obscure municipal companies still exist,
without any clear purpose as to provide jobs for “party boys”
- - No clear economic strategy – that would
integrate a number of other areas (namely education) and would drive hard
choices, economy and employment.
When these areas are handled, then I can start talking about
others – as, believe me, there is much to be done in terms of State efficiency
in Portugal. But, by now, whoever is able to actually handle the 5 reforms I
have listed above, will have my vote and confidence. I believe they are the
areas we should now be focusing on.
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