The Minister of Economy has announced that the competition for the position of LIAA director has been suspended. Is the mass of accusations that were voiced in the media justified, that the minister should not take political responsibility for this position of head of the LIAA at all and submissively forward the candidate selected by the competition commission for approval?
The minister has to take responsibility in the most direct way for what kind of person is being promoted. The selection commission has only one purpose, to help the minister select the best professionals, essentially – to help select, not nominate.
This existing procedure of candidate selection and nomination introduced in recent years is good on paper, very beneficial for bureaucrats. Therefore, we see the result: in a series of these competitions, mostly the same people end up in positions, they rotate in a circle. This is not acceptable to me.
These procedures protect themselves so much that they prevent the minister from getting to know what is going on a little bit, prevent him from finding out what and why the choice was made in favor of this or that candidate. All this suggests that this system is not effective and should be changed.
The competition for the post of director of the LIAA showed this very vividly. The director of LIAA would need a person with experience in business, which would be a normal prerequisite and which I had also asked for, unfortunately the result is not what I expected.
How can it be that the minister is denied information? The minister even has permission for state secrets.
This is how the law is constructed. Everything is very peculiar. The selection of candidates is already taking place outside the ministry. If we want a strong head of the LIAA, they – the tender commission – are looking for candidates. So the minister has no choice but to wait five months for the tender commission to bring the result. As a minister, I cannot in any way influence this process to happen faster or differently. Things happen as they happen, and this is not the only case. There are also cases where they wait for eight months and do not receive these good candidates.
If we want to ensure the development of the country, we must demand responsibility from parties, political forces, and ministers from this point of view as well. The moment a minister takes office, he must be allowed to take responsibility. Otherwise, it turns out that the minister occupies a position, but it is not even possible for him to take political responsibility in such cases, because everything has already been done, as it were, by the competition commission. You will agree that it is strange.
How much do such tenders cost, which are held by attracting recruitment companies, which are an inevitable part of the process? This also makes these processes financially expensive. As a result, the minister is forced to choose from what is offered and these choices are quite narrow. In my case, I asked to be offered at least three candidates with different experience profiles. I was only offered two.
And the same with one profile?
Exactly. And so it was followed by my unequivocal choice to suspend the contest in this situation. Of course, there are various lobbies that are currently trying to express their position on this issue. That’s one thing. The second thing is that there is one significant nuance in this case: all kinds of people are commenting on what is happening, who are certainly doing it for reasons known to themselves, but no one from the political parties, the Saeima, the coalition or the opposition has criticized this choice.
This shows that the Saeima also has a supportive understanding of such a step. Today also in the government, when we discussed this issue and I told my colleagues my vision regarding the future of the LIAA, the colleagues emphasized the issue of the selection process, informing them that they too have to face this difficult to understand procedure that currently exists.
Candidate selection commissions are often staffed by the same persons – personnel selection specialists. But there is one personnel selection specialist who represents a public organization registered abroad. It always raises the question of how loyal a public entity with little connection to Latvia can be in the selection of personnel. The question is, should the Ministry of Economy, in cooperation with the Ministry of Justice, initiate amendments to the laws and regulatory acts that regulate personnel selection?
In my opinion, changes are necessary and I think that we will definitely come up with offers to improve the process. At today’s government meeting, I was definitely convinced that this problem is not only on the agenda of the Minister of Economy, it was also emphasized by other ministers who spoke on the same topic.
In my opinion, it is obvious that with the introduction of the existing order, which happened simultaneously with the renewal of the works councils, a certain circle of persons are entering the leading positions. These persons rotate – one in one structure, and another in several – and occupy these responsible positions there.
Isn’t it the case that they are mostly candidates recommended by the Baltic Institute of Corporate Governance, registered in Lithuania?
Including. In the end, we come to a situation where this system begins to protect itself, nothing else from the outside is necessary, but at the same time, the selectors of candidates are not responsible to the public for the work of the specific institutions and institutions.
If you do not succeed with the operation of the LIAA, then responsibility will be expected from me as the Minister of Economy, so if there is a need to promote an institution to the position of head, I want to be sure that this person will implement the development of the company, which also coincides with the government’s settings. Our goals are quite ambitious, and in order to realize them, I have to be sure that I can rely on my team.
So, the head of LIAA must have an understanding of business, be able to implement financially intensive projects, must have proof of the candidate’s ability to attract investments?
Exactly. The people who are conditional on this list, which was put on the table for me, have considerable experience, but according to occupying political positions, as it has been until now. If the political forces represented by them were re-elected in the Saeima, they would probably occupy some political positions. Maybe the commission evaluated everything differently. There are also candidates who, for whatever reason, have not been heard from, who come to me to let me know how the process has gone. This prompts us to ask various questions – how formal was this competition and how it was conducted, was there a desire to find out anything from the candidates in substance, or were decisions made quickly after a tick – let’s do it and move on?
At the moment, the situation is that the organizer of the process has been suspended from his duty. Official correspondence is answered by people who have not participated in this process.
There is food for thought. I have already emphasized my vision before. We will move forward rapidly – LIAA must be reorganized. However, it is not one person, the head of the institution, but the whole institution and its efficiency that is important to me. I know a lot of people want to make this contest a big deal, but it’s not. It should be understood that if the institution depended on only one person, it would even be bad, but this is not the case, because the institution is all collective, its motivation is to improve the work of the institution and promote the efficiency of its operation.
Does the law prevent a minister from putting forward his candidacy for approval by the government?
I am currently still evaluating this situation. The law would allow me to nominate on a rotational basis. In this case, I could nominate one of the existing employees for approval without competition. Then the minister does not have to ask anyone for any permission. There are opportunities to nominate a deputy secretary of state, a civil servant, or a candidate from within the institution.
It’s not like the interest in the candidate is not only political, it’s also a financial interest, because trial funds go through the LIAA?
Of course, that too. Perhaps this very reason also explains why there is currently a relatively sharp reaction to my decision in the public space, but here, as I already mentioned, everyone has their own reasons for such behavior and comments, so it is up to these people.
Can we hope that the minister will make a politically responsible decision and nominate his candidacy for the government?
I have managed to get attention on this issue. The way these processes take place, the fact that they need to be improved. The good thing is that when I started talking about it openly, other ministers joined me. I am sure that we will not only manage to find a good head of the LIAA, but also manage to organize the candidate selection system.
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