From card-carriers to technocrats
After the tragedy in Tempe, when two trains collided head-on, it is clear that the main issue of the pre-election period will not be economic policy, the coronavirus and the jump in prices due to the war in Ukraine. It will be the modernization of the state, which – with the exception of some services that were digitally transformed by Digital Governance Minister Kyriakos Pierrakakis – remains antiquated, clientelistic and regressive. The state bears great responsibility for the unjust loss of 57 people in the accident.
But in order to modernize the state, the parties that have ruled Greece must first take responsibility for the lack of political will to change those ills, as well as their insistence on the clientelistic logic that aggravates the disintegration of the state, which is placing incompetent party candidates and card-carrying members in key positions.
Indicatively, I will mention that the last managers of the state-run railway company OSE were all politicians on New Democracy’s ticket, with no experience of the railways, while the head of the Railway Regulatory Authority, appointed by main opposition SYRIZA when it was in power, was a former employee of social security fund EFKA. And clientelism doesn’t limit itself to trains. As soon as a political party is elected into government, dozens of failed party cadres are appointed to positions of responsibility throughout the state apparatus, party friends who had car repair shops are appointed managers in regional health centers and soccer coaches are selected to run hospitals.
After the tragedy at Tempe, a bold step is required for the country to finally acquire meritocratic institutions and appoint the right executives to state-run organizations. Specifically, politicians must set up, here and now, and before the Parliament adjourns for the elections, with bipartisan agreement, a body similar to the Supreme Council for Civil Personnel Selection (known here as ASEP) for the selection of management executives. The new body will have, for example, the ability to choose three candidates based on their resumes that will be published on the government website open.gov.gr for all to see, and from these three, the respective government will have to choose the one it considers most suitable to head a state-run organization or a state-run company.
In this way, the state will immediately make a qualitative leap into the future, from politicians and card-carriers to managers and technocrats. Say it and do it, Mr Mitsotakis, Mr Tsipras, Mr Androulakis.
