Banker Erkki Raasuke: We're getting poor direction from the state
LHV Group Managing Director Erkki Raasuke, one of Estonia's foremost bankers, told Estonian daily Eesti Ekspress that the primary hindrance to economic growth is poor management in the government, the ministries, state-owned companies and partly in privately owned companies as well.
"This is a hypothesis, but I think that we could imrpove our economic growth and living conditions if the quality of management improved," Raasuke told Eesti Ekspress (link in Estonian) in an interview. "If you look at how the management structure to receive the most attention — i.e. the government and the public sector — works, it does not provide a good enough example. There are times when we get explicitly poor direction."
According to Raasuke, Prime Minister Taavi Rõivas should not be asked why there isn't five percent economic growth in Estonia, but rather why they in the government — in Estonia's most visible team — do things thus, thus or thus. "Why do you squabble daily? Why are you incapable of implementing things? Why is it that if on one day you agree upon something, then on the next day the agreement no longer applies? How do things end up dragging on, how is it that we are incapable of getting four ferries going betweeen the islands and the mainland? Of course the prime minister cannot be responsible for the behavior of all the ministers, but as the team leader, the team's positive or negative results rest upon his shoulders."
Raasuke also noted that "...if we are talking about economic growth, then we are talking about Tallinn and Harju County, but by today we've had ten years of a fight between the government and our biggest city."
"It is difficult to quantify, but the effects of the Tallinn vs. the state relatinship are colossal," Raasuke continued, adding that the decade-long confrontation was one of the country's political leaders' biggest failures.
Estonia's economic growth was 0.6 percent smaller than expected during Q2.
Editor: Editor: Aili Sarapik