In the excited speech that preceded the approval of the Budget, the Minister of State Reform displayed growth indicators, seeking to legitimize the reform with the mathematics of optimism. However, arithmetic does not replace the anatomy of the State and it is precisely this anatomy that remains absent from the official plan.
The Government proclaims that simplifying means eliminating barriers. However, simplifying implies understanding the system and most blockages do not live in legal codes, they live in the structural disarticulation of services that do not communicate with each other. Informational silos still constitute the very skeleton of a fragmented State, incoherent and incapable of keeping up with the real rhythm of citizens’ lives.
Digitization appears in official discourse as the magic solution, but when processes are wrong, digitizing them only makes them fail faster. Technology without architecture, interoperability and qualification becomes a machine of frustration. “Bad bureaucracy” sometimes changes shape without disappearing and becomes even more opaque.
It is urgent to accelerate “good bureaucracy” through the replacement and disintermediation of certificates with machine-to-machine (M2M) mechanisms, preventing citizens from functioning as messengers between services. True public value requires common standards, technical leadership, and an effective commitment to interoperability. Without active collaboration between services, M2M runs the risk of becoming an announcement of modernization without achieving the necessary structural change.
The Government insists on trust, although confusing trust with deregulation compromises the public interest. Trust is built with transparency, scrutiny and guaranteed rights. This implies strengthening and not weakening internal and external control mechanisms, which are essential to guarantee impartiality, legality and integrity.
Reforming the State does not mean freeing itself from control to please lobbies that demand faster decisions at any cost. Listening to economic sectors is healthy, but governing according to their pressures puts equity and institutional balance at risk.
It is within this framework that iGov, with its innovation, intelligence, interoperability, integrity and inclusion, distinguishes itself from the current government discourse. iGov places the citizen at the center, not as an obedient user, but as an active participant, always respecting the audit and monitoring mechanisms essential to a mature democracy.
Artificial intelligence is presented as a promise of agility. Without ethical principles, robust oversight and political reflection, AI tends to reinforce technological asymmetries and dependencies. The danger lies not in technology but in the political illusion that algorithms can replace human reflection.
Labor reform is celebrated as a driver of economic dynamism, although it is ignored that digital modernization requires valued workers and public administrations with strategic capacity and commitment to public service, without exhausted and submissive teams, nor camouflaged efficiency cuts.
The Minister guarantees that this is growth reform. However, State reform is measured by its ability to guarantee rights, protect data, prevent inequalities and serve people with dignity. When these dimensions are ignored, what appears as change is merely political cosmetics.
Reforming the State means investing in a future that is not built with pleasant numbers or easy technological promises. It stands up with courage to face vested interests, with active listening to citizens and with the lucidity to understand that technology only modernizes when it strengthens democracy for all, without ever circumventing it just for the benefit of a few.
E-governance specialist
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