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The State Audit Office's findings indicate that work on making state administration more efficient must continue, State Chancellery's Communications Department head Laine Kucinska told LETA. "Improving state administration's performance must become a priority, otherwise the inefficient public administration will have a thoroughly negative effect on Latvia's development in the near future already," said Dreimane.

In order to achieve this, state administration culture and values must change profoundly, which is why work on the relevant amendments is continuing and new training modules for employees in public administration are being developed. Every civil servant must become aware of his or her mission, work for the state and ethics, so officials who have a distorted system of values could not misuse state funds, believes Dreimane.

The State Chancellery proposed several reforms regarding personnel management in state administration last year already in order to make civil servants goal-oriented and not process-oriented, said Dreimane. A new system of assessment of civil servants' performance has been introduced this year, she added.

As reported, the crisis within the state administration is over, the State Audit Office points out after reviewing spending on purchases and the organization of office parties and other entertainment events by state institutions last year.

Ministries and their subordinate institutions recklessly spent budget financing for the purchase of various items, including expensive equipment, and office parties were funded by taxpayers' money. Furthermore, there have also been cases of tenders which suspiciously lessened requirements for candidates.