Home-grown think-tank focuses on efficiency and the replacement of bureaucrats with ATMs.

iTOP is the brain-child of the finance minister. Last week, I had a sneak preview of the mission statement of the latest think-tank to be established in this country.

The new think-tank’s ambition is “to challenge the ascendancy of social market ideology by demonstrating, in theory and in practice, that the role of the state can reasonably be limited to the setting, collection and redistribution of taxes. All other public services may be contracted out to the private sector, thus ensuring the most efficient delivery of these services.”

The mission statement sets out in deceptively simple terms why this minimalist approach to state administration is so efficient. First, eliminating excessive bureaucracy will boost productivity and raise the quality of public services. “The more bureaucrats there are, the more obscure the internal structures, and the easier it is for someone to hide his inability or incompetence behind some committee or board.” iTOP cites the example of public procurement. “Experience demonstrates that bureaucrats are quite unable to negotiate effectively with the private sector when procuring goods and services, unless they are advised by intermediaries with real experience of how business actually works. What we recommend is that the whole public procurement process be contracted out to the private sector, with responsibility for the state’s procurement requirements in, for example, the areas of IT, armaments, road-building and environmental clean-up, handed over to a single private firm with a proven track-record in each case. This will eliminate the need for regiments of incompetent bureaucrats.”

The second big efficiency gain from contracting out public services according to iTOP is the transparency it brings to the current messy business of delivering public services. “Excessive organization is always the beginning of corruption. It confuses responsibility and thus enables those of weak character to get rich at public expense.” Simplification of the delivery of public services involves centralising power and eliminating corrupt bureaucrats. “A good example is the contracting out of the distribution of state pensions and social benefits to a single private bank. Cash payments are replaced with a simple debit card, and thousands of potentially corrupt municipal bureaucrats are simply replaced by thousands of efficient ATMs.”

Asked if he was not concerned that such an approach might lead to the creation and consolidation of private monopolies, and discourage future competition, the finance minister dismissed such fears. “The labour minister and I will personally guarantee that only really TOP companies in our country are selected to provide such essential services.”

The document and the motives of its authors certainly require much closer examination. The concluding statement of the finance minister, in which he sets out his own political philosophy and convictions, is worth reading in full: “I am deeply convinced that the state cannot be relied upon to invest taxpayers’ money wisely. Take the example of energy efficiency. Either the state can redistribute CO2 emission allowances to hundreds of thousands of people keen to improve the energy efficiency of their homes, through state-run programmes administered by so-called environmentalists in the Ministry of Environment, in which case we run the obvious risk that most of this money will actually be spent on alcohol and cigarettes. I have even read in the tabloid press that there have been examples of Zelená úsporám funds being spent on insulating buildings that provide erotic services. I am convinced that we should give this money to companies with a proven track record in emitting CO2. These companies know much better than bureaucrats how to invest this money productively.”