New broom sweeping with vigour

Photo: Liis Treimann

At one strike, majority of Police and Border Guard Board top officials lose jobs.

Staff decisions by fresh Police and Border Guard Board (PBGB) director general Elmar Vaher, in his second month in office, are exceptionally forceful.

Yesterday was an intense day at PBGB, on the staff side, with the new director general informing his subunits of top management changes – in the making over the past month. These are the steps taken by Mr Vaher to lay foundations for his «own team», rendering three of his five deputies redundant.

While the removals of law and order chief Tarmo Miilits and border guard boss Tõnu Hunt had already crossed the news threshold, the «forced» departure of criminal police head and former security policeman Raigo Haabu struck the public as a surprise.

Thus, the new director general will literally do what the interior minister was wishing for, launching his candidates hunt at the start of the year: purging PBGB of its former leadership style and creating the new team vital for changes. At the moment, Mr Vaher enjoys the ministry’s full support for such moves.

Expecting arguments

The new broom’s desire to make a clean sweep was evident in Mr Vaher’s very first personnel decision. Namely, when he set Vallo Koppel from Tartu, a man with criminal police background, to be the Eastern prefect.

Allegedly, Mr Vaher did not detect strong leadership capabilities in the acting Eastern prefect and former border guard Aimar Köss, nor the ability to argue with the leadership, if needed. The ability to argue being a quality highly valued by director general in his team – as, under the former PBGB chief Raivo Küüt, staff meetings often seemed to be prevailed by silent consensus.

Mr Vaher, then the Northern prefect, then being one of the few opponents. In his opinion, many a leadership decision in PBGB ought to have been otherwise. However, a prefect has little leverage against director general or his deputy. This being the main reason why Mr Vaher is now changing almost all deputies – seeing no chance of good cooperation with people who for years have been claiming that «this is no way of doing things».

Due to rising real estate costs, rearrangements in PBGB are unavoidable; decisions related to that had already started to be taken. Thus, PBGB recently closed down Citizenship and Migration Board’s costly rented facilities in the Foorum centre in Tallinn city centre, with yearly rent of €60,000.

A month ago, the Citizenship and Migration Board’s Endla Street building was also emptied out. For that, State Real Estate Ltd received some €200,000in rent, annually.

Migration officials were placed into the link between PBGB main building and Northern Prefecture house in Pärnu Road. However, more significant «moves» are in store.

«Raccoon dog» invasion

Soon, the new PBGB board will occupy an entire floor of the so called green house – up to now used entirely by border guards, built just for them in 2005.

The border guard wing will also be housing all PBGB development bureaus, up to now in separate locations (criminal police at Tööstuse St, Kalamaja; law and order at former security police house at Ädala St; citizenship and migration at Endla St).

This being yet another decision breeding loads of discontentment and inspiring some policemen to call colleagues raccoon dogs. The phrase, from the Joel Steinfeldt hit Badger’s House (Mägra maja, raccoons occupying the badger’s diligently built house – edit) does indeed sound spiteful; however, decisions like this are forced moves, as personally explained to border guards by director general, at the start of the week.

Firstly, the seventh floor is the only location suited to move the management together. Secondly: putting the development bureaus, involved in analysis and other strategic decisions under one roof is indeed the only wise option for the organisation.

With initial changes having to do with the PBGB main building, in near future the prefectures will have their share of such news.

Comment

Ken-Marti Vaher, Minister of the Interior (IRL)

As top manager of the largest public organisation, Elmar Vaher may only succeed with a reliable and capable team. Within two months, he has done an excellent job, examining the accomplishments of managers, made his choices and presenting me the proposals to be confirmed. It is prudent indeed to have people one may lean on, as a top manager will accomplish nothing alone.