Researchers: Government implements only 30% of its resolutions

Researchers believe the government does not implement 70 percent of its resolutions. More cautious estimates speak of 40 percent, but scholars agree on one thing: Unapplied cabinet resolutions are the primary cause for public distrust for its leadership. Government Secretary Oved Yehezkel intends to do something about it next week.

On Sunday, Yehezkel will submit a new plan for the cabinet's approval, aimed at ensuring that the government's decisions no longer fall through the cracks. The plan is in effect a series of reforms and procedures which aim to impose deadlines on resolutions.

Until now, cabinet resolutions have passed without a deadline for their implementation. Under the new plan, each and every decision would carry a timetable until completion. If the deadline is not met, the resolution will go up for review by a special ministerial committee - headed by the prime minister - for oversight.

The committee's protocol, according to Yehezkel's proposal, will be made public each time it is convened, thereby focusing public attention on the performance of the committee and the ministries that were supposed to implement the cabinet's resolutions in the first place.

Sources in the Prime Minister's Office spoke favorably of the plan.

"Things are going to significantly change. Under the new plan, ministers will have a way to cut across the red tape that prevents them from carrying out government resolutions," a source said.

Examples of resolutions that quietly dissolved into oblivion are easy to find. In 1996, 11 years ago, the government decided to do away with the division to regional districts that formed the basis for the modus operandi of government ministries nationwide. Nothing has been implemented.

In 2004, the government decided to authorize a fifth health maintenance organization. Three years have passed without any progress toward establishing another HMO; the resolution needed to be ratified. A year before the HMO resolution, in 2003, the government pledged "a concentrated effort to bolster" Acre and Lod. Nothing materialized.

Another topic on Yehezkel's agenda, is changing the current voting policy in the government's various ministerial committees. At present, many ministers skip deliberations, and cast their vote in a paper note aides have written in their name.

But the ministers make up their minds before hearing professionals and experts who testify before the committee. At times, government sources say, the experts are summoned to lecture to the committee chairperson, who then proceeds to count the ministers' votes from notes the public servants had written in advance.

Yehezkel hopes to put an end to this by obliging ministers to attend. Except, of course, if they have a doctor's note.