As anyone who’s been in a Greek public office can tell you, it’s unsettling to see filing systems that include stacking piles of files on desks, in shopping carts and boxes and even on the floor, one of the reasons for the country’s notorious reputation for inefficiency.
Now the government wants to go paperless and end the paperwork that often slows down transactions in Greece’s public administration. A draft presidential decree foreseeing the exclusive use of electronic files in the public sector has been submitted to the state’s highest court for approval.
The decree, signed by Deputy Administrative Reform Minister Manousos Voloudakis and Alternate Finance Minister Christos Staikouras, aims to digitalize all existing documents and create databases which will be accessible to ministries and state organizations.
The initiative is in line with demands by Greece’s Troika of international lenders to boost efficiency in the cumbersome public administration. It is to be implemented alongside a Troika-imposed streamlining of the civil service, involving 15,000 layoffs by the end of next year.
Once the digitalized document scheme becomes operational, it is expected to be of benefit to citizens as well, as widely used documents such as birth certificates and other official documents will also be easily accessible without having to go to some office and stand in line and hope to be waited on. The decree also outlines security measures in a bid to ensure that such sensitive documents do not fall into the wrong hands.
Documents are to be categorized Top Secret, Confidential, and Restricted Access and will be accessible to officials according to their rank, by means of a code.
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