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Rosen Zhelyazkov: E-government is more than technology

Photo: BGNES

The public expects to see results from the cabinet-declared administrative reform, aimed at reducing the administrative burden – so that some documents will no longer be required, others may be provided electronically, without having to stand in line and wait to have them issued at some institution.

"People expect things to happen immediately, as soon as they have been announced, but these are long processes," commented Rosen Zhelyazkov, Chair of the State e-Government Agency, in an interview for the BNR's Horizont channel, adding that it takes legislative changes to be able to pass over to a lighter administrative regime.

“As to the issuance of a certificate of no criminal conviction in particular, it has been said many times that more than 60 acts will have to be amended and that is something that has to happen in parliament, in two readings."

"Unfortunately, people are weary of waiting for things to happen after having listened to so many words like reform, development and change so many times," Zhelyazkov said and went on to enumerate the parameters of administrative reform outlined by the government:

"They are connected with a full analysis and approach regarding this transformation of the administrative model - first and foremost making the administrative regulations lighter by amending legislation because the approach over the past 10 years - since there has been talk of a centralized e-government - has always been to make individual services electronic, without taking into account the fact that this will only mean replacing the analogue administrative burden with an e-administrative burden. Before making the more than 2,500 regimes - permits, licences, certificates - electronic, they must be analyzed to see which of them are necessary and which are not."



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