“First of all, I want to comment on the accusations – they are not based on data and facts, I would really like to see where the chancellor has worsened the legislative process”, M. Gelbūda said following the start of the no-confidence procedure in the Seimas on Thursday.
He also stated that the reproaches expressed are “petty and not based on facts”, and most of them are not related to the responsibility of the chancellor and the key activities of the Seimas.
The draft resolution on the dismissal of M. Gelbūdas from the position of Chancellor of the Seimas on grounds of no confidence was submitted by 74 members of the Seimas out of 141. Later on Thursday, a secret vote will be held on the dismissal of the Chancellor on grounds of no confidence.
According to the Statute of the Seimas, the decision on the dismissal of Seimas officials due to lack of confidence is made by secret ballot with a majority of more than half of all Seimas members.
The chancellor of the Seimas said that he would respect the decision of the Seimas, whatever it was, but said that he hoped that the no-confidence procedure “will encourage a discussion on what should be the relationship between politicians and public administration”.
M. Gelbūda also said that when he came to work, he inherited a complex structure, he claimed that he had several dozen employees directly under him, and changes were necessary.
“If a foreigner had worked in such a structure, he would have gone mad following two days,” said the chancellor.
The representative of the Democrats, Tomas Tomilinas, asked if it was true that it was planned to “nationalize” the employees of the Secretariat of Seimas meetings, so that the employees working in this structure would be employees under employment contracts, and not civil servants.
M. Gelbūda said that he might not answer this question “yes” or “no”, because it would be incorrect to give a final answer before the end of the process.
“There are, shall we say, Western procedural things here. I have looked at the structures and meeting secretariats in the West are part of the civil service, but you can imagine how transparent I will be when, before starting work, I will start talking loudly regarding which employees might be outsourced”, said the chancellor.
M. Gelbūda also denied accusations of a bad microclimate and presented his Wednesday online survey of office workers, according to the data of which, according to the chancellor, the workers are in favor of him staying in the post.
According to the data of this survey, 45 percent of employees said that the microclimate in the Seimas office improved during his tenure, 21 percent. said that they agree more, and 12 percent said they did not agree at all, seven – disagreed more.
206 employees of the office out of 420 took part in the survey, but MPs criticized that it might not be anonymous, as announced, because in order to participate in it employees had to connect to the Seimas’ internal network through personal accounts.
The leader of the Labor Party, Seimas Vice-Chairman Andrius Mazuronis, who presented the 74 parliamentarians motion of no confidence, said that following the arrival of M. Gelbūda, the bureaucracy in the parliamentary office only increased, which caused dissatisfaction among the employees.
“Various new procedures have been introduced, according to which office workers are required to fill out various reports in addition to their daily functions, which has increased the aimless workload and bureaucratic processes, where, in my opinion, an efficient and modern head of the office should take the opposite steps and make the activities of structural units more efficient, instead of burdening them with aimless functions”, noted A. Mazuronis.
According to the deputy speaker of the parliament, due to increased bureaucracy, “there was a lot of demotivation, quarrels, a lot of tension in the office, and there was absolutely no added value.”
The parliamentarians also criticized the chancellor for the unorganized entrances to the Seimas, Independence Square and the fountain, the implementation of the civil service reform, the inability to ensure uninterrupted operation of the Seimas cafeteria, the operation of the medical center and other stalled works.
The leader of the Parliament, Viktorija Čmilytė-Nielsen, said this week that more than half of the MPs’ lack of confidence in Seimas Chancellor M. Gelbūda is “a very serious signal that not all the work during those years went as planned”.
Last week, 74 parliamentarians, belonging to both the opposition and governing factions, signed an initiative of no confidence in the Chancellor of the Seimas.
Seimas vice-chairman “worker” Andrius Mazuronis then told BNS that parliamentarians M. Gelbūda have complaints because the implementation of the civil service reform is stalled, the employee evaluation system is based on subjective factors, and the issue of work efficiency in offices is not being resolved.
According to him, the chancellor also failed to organize the Seimas’ car farm, the office employees constantly receive complaints regarding M. Gelbūda’s work methods, failure to ensure working conditions, poor microclimate.
M. Gelbūda, professor of the ISM University of Management and Economics, international business and management expert, was appointed Chancellor of the Seimas in April 2021.
The term of office of the chancellor of the Seimas is five years.
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2024-04-04 09:26:25
