“One of the reasons, perhaps the main one, why the government led by Mario Monti failed to cut public spending was the choice to keep in place, almost without exception, all the big bureaucrats who lead the ministries”. This is how Francesco Giavazzi's editorial published this morning in Corriere della Sera begins, going straight to the heart of the problems. Who warns: “The new government has until May 31 to decide whether to confirm the senior leaders of the ministries: heads of cabinet and legislative offices, heads of departments, directors general. Anyone who is not explicitly confirmed will automatically lapse. It is one of the most important choices of the coming weeks”.
Giavazzi is absolutely right and that of the Monti government - many reforms announced but few actually implemented due to the sabotage of ministerial bureaucracy - is a school case. A case that raises a problem that is not new but always disturbing: Who really rules in Italy? Politics or bureaucracy? The Government or the very powerful and immovable super-bureaucrats?
The question had already been raised yesterday by Giulio Sapelli who, ininterview given to FIRSTonlinehad clamored for the first place with the problem of the State General Accounting Office, a sort of state within a state, and the opportunity to send its owner, Mario Canzio, home. Nothing personal of course, but a political and institutional problem as big as a house, which today also relieves Giavazzi.
What is attributed to Canzio and the super-bureaucrats? “To have knowingly sabotaged – are Sapelli's words – the political decisions taken by the Government and Parliament in matters of development”.
“Mario Canzio, the current State General Accountant – writes Giavazzi today in the Corriere – entered the Accounting Department in 1972, 41 years ago, as an official of the General Inspectorate of the Budget, the office that has control over public spending. Since that day, public spending net of interest has grown (at today's prices) by about 200 billion, from 32 to 45% of GDP. Since he was appointed Accountant General eight years ago, it has grown by more than 30 billion.
Obviously it is not only the general accountant's fault, but there are two points that Giavazzi rightly raises and which deserve to be brought to the table: 1) "The monopoly of information is the real reason for the power of the bureaucracy”, but this monopoly must be broken and whoever has to decide – Government and Parliament – must possess all the cognitive elements to be able to make their own choices in the interest of the country; 2) The Accountant General is a lifetime appointment and this too is a problem that needs to be addressed.
At a time when replacement is demanded and sometimes realized in politics and in many sectors of the life of the country, the time has not come to bring a breath of renewal and transparency even to the high bureaucracy with a perennial rotation of super-bureaucrats from a ministry to another? The case of Accounting is perhaps the most striking but it is not the only one. We want to talk about Ministry of Foreign Affairs or of Interior Ministry?
Let's be clear: an expert and competent technostructure is essential for good governance and good administration, but political choices are not up to super-bureaucrats. And if, as it should be, we have to turn the spotlight on all castes, that of bureaucracy certainly cannot be excluded.
