Social and sports at the bottom, science at the top

The weakest performance in the government last year was achieved by the ministers of sport Nikola Janović, health minister Kenan Hrapović and labor and social care minister Kemal Purišić.

In contrast to them, the Minister of European Affairs Andrija Pejović, the Minister of Defense Predrag Bošković, the Minister of Education Damir Šehović and the Minister of Science Sanja Damjanović performed the best.

This is derived from the statistics of the Report on the implementation of the Government's work program for 2017, which was recently adopted and published on its website.

Ministerial departments were evaluated on the basis of which of the strategies, reports and laws, for which they are responsible, were adopted. Thus, the Ministry of European Affairs implemented all of the 11 measures, as well as the Ministry of Science - all five of the five.

The Ministry of Defense fulfilled all six measures, and the Ministry of Education - 11 measures.

However, the Ministry of Sports did not fulfill two measures, which it had, as well as social care, six out of a total of 14.

Although Prime Minister Duško Marković evaluated the work of his associates on the basis of these data, among other things, public policy researcher at the Institute of Alternatives (IA) Milena Milošević said that the report does not answer the questions of how valuable the Government actually was.

"This is a numerical representation of the adopted documents, and does not provide an overview of the effects that the proposed laws, strategies and action plans had in practice. It also provides a distorted picture, because the planning is not so developed nor based on recognized problems, that it manages to include all annual priorities for certain ministries," Milošević told "Vijesta"

She believes that the adoption of legal changes and strategies is often not an indicator of progress in practice.

"Illustrative is the case of amendments to the Law on Free Access to Information, which the non-governmental sector criticized because they introduce additional restrictions on access to information, instead of improving it," she reminded. She pointed out that independent administrative bodies, which fall under the purview of certain ministries, are invisible in the Government's report, even though they have important activities.

The total implementation of the Government Work Program for 2017 is 84,3 percent.

IA: Some areas have gone backwards

Milena Milošević says that despite all plans, programs and public debates, laws on state administration and public procurement were changed, among other things, introducing problematic provisions that set back the areas of transparent public spending and citizen participation in decision-making. "The government, busy with post-election negotiations, never adopted the Report on the Implementation of the Government's Work Program for 2016," said the IA activist for "Vijesti".