KIEV, Dec. 10 – The government on Friday submitted to Parliament a draft 2011 budget that trims Ukraine’s budget deficit to 3% of GDP, partly reflecting lower spending on bureaucracy next year.

The lower spending comes after an administrative reform cut the number of seats in the Cabinet of Ministers, and also reduced the number of state agencies and committees.

Opposition group praised the budget’s cuts in government, but argued that more has to be done to improve governance and reduce corruption.

“This is a step in the right direction,” Viktor Pynzenyk, a former finance minister and the head of the Ukrainian Foundation to Support Reforms, said. “The less ministers, the less they will bother each other, the people and businesses.”

President Viktor Yanukovych on Thursday issued decree slashing the number of seats in the Cabinet to 16 from 24, and also cutting the number of state agencies and committees to 64 from 112.

The staff at the Cabinet of Ministers is supposed to be reduced to 600 from about 1,200, mostly at the expense of merging some ministries and reducing the number of deputy ministers from eight to two.

The cuts and layoffs are supposed to be extended to regional administrations throughout Ukraine.

But Pynzenyk said the announced reform does not go far enough as duties of other ministers appear to overlap, reducing efficiency of governance. For example, every minister - and even a lawmaker - able to authorize spending while drafting state budget.

“The fundamental principle of management - such as each area is managed by one person - is not implemented,” Pynzenyk said. “Every minister is at the same time a finance minister. In addition to this there are 450 finance ministers in Parliament.”