Job description of Deputies

Dear Colleagues

We are advised by various media sources that new Deputy Ministers are assigned to Ministries recently.  We sincerely wonder the success criteria of deputy minister in a ministry, since they are not MPs. It will be a good challenge to draft job description of a Deputy Minister, especially in Ministry of  Energy & Natural Resources.

If I were the Deputy Minister in Ministry of Energy & Natural Resources, I would volunteer to visit power plants all year long non-stop.

If I were the Deputy Minister in Ministry of Energy & Natural Resources, I would volunteer to participate all energy conferences/ seminars.

If I were the Minister in Ministry of Energy & Natural Resources, I would let the Deputy to draft all speeches for ceremonies, but deliver the speeches by myself  at all times,

If I were the Minister in charge in Ministry of Energy, I would ask my Deputy to be responsible of specific investment projects.

If I were the Minister in Ministry of Energy & Natural Resources, I would encourage my Deputy to participate to all academic gatherings.

If I would be the Minister in charge, I would prefer to assign my deputy to visit the establishments/ companies/ power plants/ research centers of my organization out of Ankara non-stop.

Deputy Prime Minister(PM) post is normal in everywhere since PM cannot fulfill all responsibilities at the same time, however Deputy Minister post is seldom in world application.

There will be most likely non- stop dispute between the Minister in charge and the Deputy Minister supported by the top decision maker, since Deputy will be reporting to top decision maker not to the Minister.

Moreover Minister in charge never wishes to share his/her responsibilities with his/her Deputy.

All in all, Deputy ministers are the last need for the Minister in charge, we wonder how long they will stay in the Ministries.

Your comments are welcome, with best regards

-- Haluk Direskeneli, Ankara based Energy Analyst,