Session with high-ranking officials of the Belarus President Administration

There are a few problems with executive discipline among civil servants and in the work with people’s petitions, Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko said at the session with the high-ranking officials of the Belarus President Administration on 24 October.

The agenda of the session included such issues as the personnel policy, the prestige and status of civil service. “You have proposals and questions. I am ready to discuss them,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said. “We will traditionally discuss the fulfillment of the President’s instructions at such meetings. First of all, I have warned the head of the Belarus President Administration that we have problems (I do not know if they are big or small) and today we will make conclusions about the executive and, unfortunately, labor discipline of our civil servants. I asked to monitor these issues and report to me today.”

According to the President, another issue on the agenda is the efficiency of work with people’s petitions. Corresponding instructions were given some time ago. “We need a normal way of work with people’s petitions. Since Soviet times, the situation has been as follows: some people write to the President Administration or to the attention of the President, someone complain of the local authorities, and we send these petitions there for consideration. There is a flow of unnecessary information, we pay for it, deliver letters by mail, and then they are sent back. We also use expensive courier services. We should stop it. And I want concrete proposals here,” the Belarusian leader emphasized.

Aleksandr Lukashenko remarked that such meetings with the high-ranking officials of the Belarus President Administration will be held on a regular basis, for example, once in two months. The event was also attended by State Secretary of the Security Council Stanislav Zas and Head of the Belarus President Property Management Directorate Viktor Sheiman.

The President stressed that at such meetings he wants to discuss urgent issues which require the President’s attention rather than to listen to the reports. “I would like to work in a way to convince people that it is possible to inform the President about the resolution of certain issues directly and raise all kinds of questions. It is possible, this is the form of work. And you are the initiators here. If there are many such questions we can have more frequent meetings,” he said.

At the same time, Aleksandr Lukashenko remarked that any participant of the session can inform the President about the current state of affairs even without a session. “However, such sessions help outline certain priorities of work and take corresponding measures,” the head of state noted.

“And I want to warn you that the decisions we are making here should be irrevocably fulfilled. There will be no chance to kick around ideas and put them on the back burner. Today we must determine the key objectives of our work and, of course, discuss pending issues,” Aleksandr Lukashenko concluded.