Public administration has no other legitimacy and no other yardstick than the service of the people and country, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said on Tuesday in the Parliament Building at the ceremony held for handing over the appointment deeds of the heads of government offices.
According to the Prime Minister, mid-level public administration is the most efficiently functioning unit of the Hungarian State. “We expect the Minister heading the Prime Minister’s Office to also raise central public administration to that level so that we can say that this difference will disappear in the next few years”, he said.
He added that in mid-level public administration they had introduced a career model system, but they are also planning to raise the salaries of those working in central public administration.
The Prime Minister highlighted that in 2010 their goal was to reconsider the role of the Hungarian State. “We wanted a state which enables us – all at once – to protect the sovereignty of the country (…) and to allow the Hungarian people to live in a free country”. To this end they had to renew the entire legal system, they had to strengthen public security and they had to transform public administration, he listed, specifically mentioning the establishment of government offices and the setting up of the district system. He observed he does not claim that the district system is in a perfect state as he is not convinced that the number of district offices and centres is optimal. In his words, the next four years will perhaps be a good time to reconsider this question, too.
Mr Orbán said the Hungarian State and those administering its operation must at all times function in such a way that “the state should preserve us as we are; as we also said in the election campaign, to preserve Hungary as a Hungarian country”. He indicated that the guideline of the heads of government offices will remain unchanged also in the coming years. He therefore asked them to perform their work with the posture which serves as an expression of a thousand-year-old state.
In his welcome speech Gergely Gulyás, the Minister heading the Prime Minister’s Office, said that during the reform of public administration that started after the change of government in 2010 they made it clear which responsibilities fall within the competence of the state and central public administration and which powers are to be exercised by municipalities. These powers and responsibilities have been successfully separated, and thanks to this, today the Hungarian State is working better than before, he said in evaluation.
He highlighted that today the state mostly comes into practical contact with the people via public administration, and in particular, via the government offices. Therefore the conscientious performance of duties to high standards in government offices projects an image to citizens regarding the functioning of the whole of the state.
There was a change in the office holder of head of government office in a single place, in Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok County after the former head of the government office was elected a Member of Parliament.
Effective as of 1 July Attila Berkó has been appointed as head of the Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok County government office, Ervin Demeter as head of the Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén County government office, István György as head of the metropolitan government office, Bertalan Harangozó as head of the Vas County government office, Kálmán Horváth as head of the Tolna County government office, Zoltán Horváth as head of the Baranya County government office, Tünde Juhász as head of the Csongrád County government office, Csaba Kancz as head of the Komárom-Esztergom County government office, Ernő Kovács as head of the Bács-Kiskun County government office, Zsolt Neszményi as head of the Somogy County government office, Gábor Pajtók as head of the Heves County government office, Róbert Rácz as head of the Hajdú-Bihar County government office, István Román as head of the Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg County government office, Rózsa Sifter as head of the Zala County government office, László Simon as head of the Fejér County government office, Sándor Szabó as head of the Nógrád County government office, Sándor Széles as head of the Győr-Moson-Sopron County government office, Árpád Takács as head of the Békés County government office, Szabolcs Takács as head of the Veszprém County government office and Richárd Tarnai as head of the Pest County government office.
The ceremony was attended by Defence Minister Tibor Benkő, Minister of State for Public Administration Bence Tuzson, Marcell Biró, head of the Government Office of the Prime Minister and Károly Kontrát, Parliamentary State Secretary at the Ministry of Interior.
(MTI)
