Aleksandr Lukashenko meets with Leonid Maltsev, Alexander Konyuk and Valentin Shayev

Optimization of public prosecutor’s offices and the Investigation Committee has been discussed at a working meeting of President of the Republic of Belarus Aleksandr Lukashenko with State Secretary of the Security Council of Belarus Leonid Maltsev, Prosecutor General Alexander Konyuk and Head of the Investigation Committee Valentin Shayev on 18 January.

“We agreed that at the beginning of the year we will again discuss optimization of public prosecutor’s offices and the Investigation Committee. You promised to make a report on the optimization plans. We considered uniting several public prosecutor’s offices in Minsk and the oblast capitals,” the President said.

According to Aleksandr Lukashenko, the optimization has been necessitated, among other things, by the change in functions of public prosecutor’s offices after the establishment of the Investigation Committee. However, during the formation of the Investigation Committee it became clear that more agencies can be abolished. The head of state was informed about the progress in the matter.

“The only thing I would like to warn you about is to avoid attempts to push your own agenda during the optimization. Act like you are starting your own company which should have the optimal number of staff and proper money management. We need to stay in the tideway of the nation-wide civil servants optimization program,” the President said.

According to Alexander Konyuk, individual public prosecutor’s offices are to be united in Grodno, Brest, Mogilev, Vitebsk and some major towns, like Polotsk, Orsha and Pinsk. The matter will be discussed separately for Gomel and Minsk.

A similar optimization principle will be applied to the Investigation Committee. Alexander Konyuk and Valentin Shayev were instructed to meet optimization targets together based on the single concept.

Aleksandr Lukashenko was also informed about the crime rate in Belarus. The number of murders and grave bodily injuries has shrunk considerably. The number of robberies has dropped by a quarter. The statistics reveals that in 2012 the number of reported crimes reduced by more than 22%.