MPs Need Assistants, Says Head of Chancellery
Published: 12.03.2012 11:21
Heiki Sibul ( Photo: Postimees/Scanpix )
Heiki Sibul, the outgoing director of the Parliamentary Chancellery, has said that in order to improve the decision-making quality of Estonia's 101 MPs, each of them should be appointed with personal assistants.
"Currently Estonia has the only parliament in the EU that does not employ such assistants," Sibul told Postimees, noting that in Lithuania, for example, each MP has three aids.
According to Sibul, parliamentary delegates are currently spending too much time on administrative duties such as keeping track of meetings, answering letters and gathering information, while they could be dealing with the much more complex tasks for which they were hired.
Legislation adopted in 2007 that sets out the duties of MPs also forsees the establishment of the personal assistant position, but Parliament has not put the plan into action, said Sibul. "It is nevertheless my deep conviction that a need for it exists," he said.
Ingrid Teesalu