The reform of local public administration must lead to the creation of functional local authorities, capable of financing their activity and providing quality services to citizens. The statement belongs to Iurie Tap, doctor in administrative sciences, and was made during the public debate “How is the effectiveness of local public administration reform assessed: by costs, quality of services or the level of development of territories?”, organized by the IPN Press Agency.

According to the expert, the current administrative system does not allow many local authorities to effectively exercise their duties. He argues that over 70% of the 898 first-level administrative-territorial units fail to finance their own administrative apparatus, which limits their ability to provide public services and implement projects for communities.

“People’s question is: why do I need an authority that cannot provide me with the necessary services?”, said Iurie Tap. He mentioned that numerous localities fail to provide basic services, such as water supply and sewage. In his opinion, a functional local administration should be able to cover at least half of its budget from its own revenues.

Regarding the second level of local public administration, Iurie Tap believes that sufficiently strong structures need to be created to manage services that cannot be efficiently organized by each community individually, such as education, health and institutional social protection. According to him, decentralization represents both an efficient method of administration and a political reform intended to contribute to the democratization of the state and society.

In this context, the expert advocates for the organization of the country into three administrative regions – North, Center and South -, which should have their own competencies in the field of regional development. These are expected to be governed by councils elected by citizens and accountable to them. In his opinion, such an organization could contribute to reducing development disparities between regions.

At the same time, Iurie Tap criticized the transfer of some competences from the local level to the territorial structures of the central public administration, mentioning that the establishment of new agencies does not automatically guarantee more efficient public services.

In the expert’s view, the future administrative-territorial units should be balanced in terms of population, area, and financial capacity, taking into account demographic, economic, territorial and cultural criteria. He believes that the reform can be prepared in the remaining period, but its success depends on the existence of a clear vision and the will to implement it.

Disclaimer: This material was developed by the IPN Press Agency, within the project “Local Government Reform in Dialogue”, financed by the Ministry of Culture from the Media Subsidy Fund.