In accordance with the Decree of the President of the Republic of 2009 “About the system of state planning” all activities of state bodies of the Republic of Kazakhstan are carried out according to their strategic plans, which determine the directions, goals, objectives, target indicators, activities and performance indicators. It is these indicators that are used to calculate the budget, as well as human resources. A necessary balance of resources and tasks is created.
At the same time, in practice, along with the system of state planning, there is a system of “ad hoc assignments” in the republic. Especially a lot of such assignments are born during trips of leaders of various levels to regions or after major meetings.
Unfortunately, state agencies and officials often pay more attention to the fulfillment of “ad hoc assignments” than to achievement of strategic goals. Also, “ad hoc assignments” are characterized by the snowball effect, when “ad hoc assignments” of higher state bodies are duplicated by “ad hoc assignments” of subordinate bodies, and their number increases as they approach the final performers.
Moreover, in practice, there are cases when “ad hoc assignments” go beyond the strategic documents, and sometimes contradict them.
As a result, central and local executive bodies are mainly concerned not with solving systemic issues of the industry and the region, but with the fulfillment of current assignments.
All this leads to an imbalance, since the resources previously calculated for achieving strategic indicators are spent on “ad hoc assignments”. As a result, strategic indicators are not achieved due to a deficiency of the budget, which was originally intended only for strategic purposes.
Take the Presidential Administration. It is a political body that shapes the country’s development strategy. Some small assignments, such as repair of a water pipe in Amangeldy village of Akkol district of Akmola region or construction of a polyclinic in the village of Krasny Partizan in Kostanai district of Kostanai region significantly complicates the already difficult mission of the Presidential Administration, increasing the number of issues under control.
In the above examples of the Presidential Administration, which has information on the whole country and the necessary powers, it is more expedient to instruct the Government to adjust the “Ak Bulak” Program as a whole in order to allocate more funds for the repair of water pipes in rural areas, or the “Salauatty Kazakhstan” Program regarding the increase in the number of polyclinics in villages.
Thus, “ad hoc assignments” should be considered as future adjustments to strategic documents, and not as solving individual tasks.
In view of the foregoing, I consider it expedient to follow the following principles in state planning:
1. The consolidation of powers and responsibilities in the single normative legal act on the levels of public administration (the Head of State and the Presidential Administration are the “architects” of the system that determine the conceptual directions for the further development of the state, the government is the “system engineer” that determines the strategy for achieving these goals and supervises its implementation, central executive bodies and akimats are “builders”, responsible for implementing the strategy by sectors and regions).
2. Transition to system planning, when the correction of the course of work of subordinate bodies is carried out not by “ad hoc assignments”, but by making changes to their strategic documents in accordance with the established procedure.
The proposed measures will allow the state body to concentrate all available resources only on the achievement of strategic goals, without being distracted by momentary, spontaneously arising questions.
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