Taipei, Sept. 15 (CNA) President Chen Shui-bian reaffirmed his commitment Sunday to pushing for government restructuring in order to establish a competitive, efficient and energetic administrative system. "We must endeavor to craft a lean and mean organization, recruit the most competent people and legislate the best possible laws and operational rules to upgrade our overall national competitiveness," Chen said at the end of the sixth meeting of the Government Reform Commission held at the Presidential Office.
The meeting focused discussion on the streamlining of local-level governments and the flexible use of the government workforce.
Regarding reform of local-level governments, Chen said four basic principles should be observed--simplicity, swiftness, pragmatism and efficiency. "Simplicity means that local-level governments should be downsized to save financial resources and facilitate the services offered to grassroots people," Chen explained. "A complicated administrative organization only hinders government accessibility to ordinary people."
Noting that fast response is essential in local government operations, Chen said too many hierarchies make it more difficult for local governments to respond swiftly to popular demand.
In government restructuring, Chen went on, pragmatism is equally important. "We should not make unrealistic promises to offer to help grassroots people resolve all their problems. Local governments need only pragmatically outline what they can do and what they should do in terms of their financial and manpower resources," he explained.
If local-level governments can satisfactorily perform their duties of serving the people with their limited resources, Chen said, they will be working efficiently.
Chen further said the government must use new thinking, new attitudes and new strategies to accomplish its administrative work and meet public demand.
Although the government has made many efforts in civil service reforms over the years, Chen said, many bottlenecks still stand in the way of realizing the goal of trimming the ruling hierarchy and government workforce. "In the future, we must redouble our efforts to cultivate a new partnership between the central and local governments with regard to the division of labor and cooperation in order to live up to public expectations of sweeping administrative reforms," the president added.
The Government Reform Commission is expected to come up with a comprehensive blueprint for central and local government restructuring and downsizing by the end of the year.