Don’t raise unruly people in extreme cold weather

Chapter 714: Anti-corruption and Integration

Perfect's reforms are actually not complicated. Generally speaking, they are aimed at improving administrative efficiency. She set up two new departments under the existing structure of the cabinet.

An audit department is responsible for reviewing the rationality of all government plans, and also reviews the financial expenditure of each government plan to confirm whether it is reasonable and whether there is unnecessary expenditure.

To this end, the Ministry of Finance needs to formulate a fiscal budget every quarter and a total government budget every fiscal year.

The Audit Department will review government expenditures based on the budget set by the Ministry of Finance to ensure that all expenditures are within the budget plan as much as possible and to avoid unnecessary waste.

The reason for doing this is that when Perfecto reviewed the cabinet's implementation of the flying battleship program after she left, she found that the cabinet seriously lacked overall planning and that duplicate construction of the same project was not an isolated case.

In addition, although the Ministry of Finance has made budget plans in the past, this budget plan is only a reference.

The expenditures of various government departments are not carried out according to the budget, but only use it as a reference. Expenditure is not strictly controlled according to the fiscal budget, but only looks at how much money the department can spend this year.

All departments spend money almost without planning, and once they run out of money, they turn to the national treasury for money.

A project often requires several rounds of additional funding before it can be completed. During this process, the funds approved from the national treasury are often not used directly for the project, but are distributed layer by layer, with each person who handles it taking a cut.

During Perfect's investigation, she discovered that at least one-third of the funds were divided up in the entire process, from the time they were approved by the Ministry of Finance to the time they were finally used for project expenses.

And this does not even take into account the various excuses for project expenses and various kickbacks.

After just a rough estimate, Perfect came to a shocking conclusion: more than two-thirds of a project's funds would often be lost, and less than one-third of the funds would actually be used for the project.

In the past, when the Victoria Empire was strong, all kinds of corruption were well covered up because the treasury was rich.

After all, amidst the flowers and the raging fire, who can see the intrigues and intrigues behind the prosperity?
But when the doomsday winter hit, while the empire was experiencing a natural climate winter, the empire itself was also experiencing another winter.

The national treasury was emptied, and massive amounts of funds together with the wealth plundered from the three kingdoms of the old world accumulated to form today's North.

People only seem to see that Perfectoct built the present prosperity of the North in just three years, but fail to see how much money and resources were spent behind it.

In the later stage of the whole plan, if the Queen had not used royal assets to subsidize the national treasury, I am afraid that the national treasury would not be able to sustain it in the end.

In this process, it is impossible to find out how much money was embezzled and how much resources were wasted.

If we want to investigate further, I'm afraid Perfecto will have to kill all the stakeholders in the North.

But after doing so, it is estimated that everyone in the North, from merchants to nobles, will be slaughtered.

So Perfect had no intention of pursuing the past.

However, after she took over the empire, she would not allow such a situation to happen again in the future government budget and project execution. That is why she set up an audit department to review all government expenditures and plug the corruption loopholes at the source.

Of course, if that's all, the effect will be very limited.

In order to further eliminate corruption, Perfect established a supervisory department under the Audit Department, which is specifically responsible for investigating the flow of funds and implementation of government plans.

If anyone is found to be corrupt, abusing power for personal gain, neglecting their duties or committing malfeasance, they will be arrested and severely punished by the supervisory authorities.

To this end, Perfect even gave the department, named the Committee for the Elimination of Corruption and Sabotage, independent investigation and arrest powers, which could initiate investigations and arrests without the approval of anyone.

However, Perfect did not give them the power of trial, that is, they could only investigate and arrest, while the trial and conviction still needed to be carried out by the judicial authorities.

Although Perfect knew that doing so would allow some people to exploit legal loopholes and escape punishment, she also knew clearly what kind of terrible monster would be born if the three powers of investigation, arrest and trial were handed over to one department.

She just wants to improve government efficiency and reduce corruption, and does not want to raise a terrifying power monster.

Compared with the audit department, the other part set up by Perfectcot is much more inconspicuous.

This department, named the Integration Department, is only responsible for the overall planning and coordination management of government projects and does not have much power.

Perfect had discovered before that there was often serious factionalism among the various departments of the empire. Each department was very concerned about the interests and affairs of its own department, but would try its best to shirk responsibility for matters that other departments asked for assistance in handling.

This has resulted in a very bad phenomenon, that is, things that could obviously be solved with just communication between the two departments often require going back and forth several times before the matter can be made clear.

It would be fine if things could be done after everything was made clear, but the result is often that even after things are made clear, the two departments will still be pulled against each other by the conflict of interests, and ultimately things still cannot be done.

In this case, a department that can coordinate and manage things across the two departments becomes very necessary.

They can be responsible for coordinating and communicating between the two departments, and the power they have also ensures that they can work obediently according to the two departments with conflicting interests.

At the same time, they can also effectively plan ongoing projects to avoid the waste of building a project separately in two different departments.

Don't find it incredible. When Perfecto reviewed the flying battleship plan, she found that more than one project had this situation, which caused her blood pressure to rise a lot.

After severely punishing a group of officials who were doing nothing but occupying their positions, Perfect came up with the idea of ​​establishing the Integration Department.

Her reform also started from these two departments. She hoped that with the help of these two newly established departments, Victoria's political situation would have a new look and that Perfectocte's ideas could be promoted with higher efficiency and lower costs.

After all, what she wanted to build was a floating city, and that kind of spectacle would cost a lot of money.

(End of this chapter)