Number of civil servants doubled
Since the 1990s the number of Russian officials has almost doubled. Yesterday, President Vladimir Putin sanctioned another boost of the Russian bureaucracy.
According to yesterday’s decree from Putin, the federal Finance Ministry will be allowed to have seven deputy ministers, up from the current five. The number of deputy ministers clearly illustrates the growth of the Russian bureaucracy. In the 1990s the ministries had only two deputies, a number which was then increased to five and then further to 6-8, newsru.com reports. According to experts, the number of officials both on regional and federal level has now increased with almost 100 percent in 10-15 years. The boost in the numbers has especially picked pace with the implementation of the federal administrative reform after year 2000. As BarentsObserver previously reported, the growth in the number of civil servants in Russia is up to six percent per year. From 2006 to 2007, the country got 115,000 new officials, most of them in federal structures. The total number of officials then (April 2007) amounted to 1,57 million.
