Ex-minister Bartoš was no doubt a talented politician. But listening to him defend the new digital construction permit system weeks before it was launched, I couldn’t figure out if he even understood it. He seemed mystified by the growing fears about the July 1 deadline, as if he thought it would all be fine. Perhaps, I thought, he was intentionally avoiding the questions and hoping he could somehow muddle through.
What he didn’t sound like was a person in the habit of listening closely to the concerns of others and responding constructively. Afterwards, over wine, I asked the opinion of one of the developers who’d been on stage with him. “Does he understand the problem? The developer laughed. “His aide in the front row was writing the answers for him and he was reading them off his tablet!”
Others at the event weren’t as strict. “A minister doesn’t have to understand everything — his job is just to sell the ministry’s work to the public,” said one person. I find the argument unconvincing, especially said another developer told me that Transport Minister Kupka has been going out of his way to understand the issues and help find solutions.
It didn’t have to end like this, with so much time wasted. When the Fiala government came to power in December 2021, it inherited a newly-crafted construction law from the outgoing government of Andrej Babiš. But the new government killed the new law, promising major amendments within a year. It ended took them until April 2023 to pass a watere-down version of the law. At that point, Bartoš began work on the ill-fated digitization protocol.
The disaster that unfolded is an example in the dangers of putting people with no project management skills in charge of such a complex assignment. Now, rather than fixing the failed system, the government will start on a new one, beginning immediately. Including the tender, due to be held next summer, the whole process could take 38 months. Complicating matters is the fact that parliamentary elections will be held next year. That means that if the opposition returns to power, it could decide to begin again all over again.
On the other hand, the country may also lose European Commission funding because of delays and be forced to foot the bill on its own. The government will be reaching out to the European Commission in hopes of winning an extension on the funding it hoped to use to finance the reform.
