Miller: Total quality management?

Prime Minister Leszek Miller has said that under his stewardship the nation is moving from TKM to TQM. TKM was a quip thrown at the previous Solidarity Election Action (AWS) leadership in 1997 by Jarosław Kaczyński, today one of the leaders of the Law and Justice Party (PiS). In translation it comes out as "It's Our Turn." It was meant to be a criticism of the AWS style of filling all jobs with cronies regardless of their qualifications and aptitude for the job. Miller has picked up on this and is claiming that under his regime things will be different. We have already enjoyed or endured 200 days of Miller's government. He started with an analysis of the dreadful state of affairs he was left with and blamed the AWS government for it. This is fair enough. All incoming governments do that. However, as the much-hyped report on the state of Poland's state-owned companies demonstrates, Miller wants to milk the failures of the past regime for some time to come. This may be a tactic to take the heat off the scrutiny of whether he really is delivering total quality management (TQM) at top level.

Let's start with some positives. Unlike his predecessor, Jerzy Buzek, Miller is a real prime minister and will not allow any backseat driving by the president or anyone else. That is a welcome change. We all know who is in charge. He took the bold step of insisting on speeding up negotiations with the European Union. Despite protests from his coalition partner the Peasants Party (PSL) he forced the tempo and delivered the closing of several negotiating chapters. He knows that he still has a tough time ahead on agriculture and that mistakes of the past (the previous government's negotiating position on VAT coming in at 22% on construction) will need to be rectified. Nevertheless, he can be pleased with what the Foreign Affairs Minister Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz and European Integration Minister Danuta Hübner tandem are achieving as the Foreign Affairs Ministry.

In terms of quality of output he can also be pleased with his labor, finance and economy ministers. Labor Minister Jerzy Hausner has at last begun to tackle the thorny issue of liberalizing Poland's labor laws. The measures he is proposing are moderate - missing are the needed reduction in social insurance costs and a reduction in the numbers of disability benefit claimants. Nevertheless, they are a step forward. Economy Minister Jacek Piechota has produced a package of measures aimed at helping small business that has been welcomed by almost everyone. At last politicians are beginning to realize that making it easier for people to form companies means increased employment and economic growth. Finance Minister Marek Belka is also doing a good job. He is balancing the budget and resisting the clarion calls from his coalition partners to attack the Monetary Policy Council (RPP). I suspect that he has leaked the SLD proposal for increased tax rates for middle earners in order to kill it. In this he is taking revenge for the way his proposals to reform public finances (imposing charges for certain public services such as health and education) were leaked by some of his fellow ministers. If we stopped there, Miller's TQM dream might be in place. Unfortunately there are two sides to every coin.

At education, Krystyna Łybacka has appeased the teaching unions and put off the modernization of Poland's matriculation exams at a time when the country desperately needs to modernize its education system. At health, Mariusz Łapiński is proposing a centralizing and inherently anti-market reform. At the treasury, Wiesław Kaczmarek has stalled the privatization process and is busy clearing out the AWS-placed men to make way for the SLD nominees. Barbara Piwnik lacks the political feel that her predecessor Lech Kaczyński had for the job at the Justice Ministry. Happenings such as the release of an influential businessman suspected by the police of commissioning the murder of the former head of police, General Marek Papała, do little to inspire confidence. The Arts Ministry under former Solidarity activist turned SLD minister Andrzej Celiński is piloting the highly controversial Electronic Media Bill, which if passed would entrench the position of the state broadcasters and severely weaken independent providers.

Difficult to talk about TQM in any of the cases listed above. If Miller is serious about providing a quality government he should be ruthless about his assessment of ministers' performances. Those who are not up to the job should be moved out. Otherwise Kaczyński's quip will apply as much to SLD as it did to AWS.

Chris Mularczyk is a Warsaw-based consultant. He can be reached at cmularczyk@wbj.pl