Reuters analyses the Romanian public sector: lack of competition and disrespect, all in high figures. Elsewhere in the news, the Romanian Finance chief was arrested for bribe. Last but not least, Romania sells its wild horses from the Danube Delta to see them turned into salami.
Reuters analyses the Romanian public sector, Cotidianul reads. According to the news agency, the Romanian public sector staff number is huge, the lack of common sense is just as substantial as 20 years ago and the high incomes are unjustified by a lack of competition. The Romanian National Union Block (BNS) leader Dumitru Costin said Romania supports 1.3 million state employees. That is a third of the country's income receivers, in comparison with Hungary, a country which pays one fifth of its salary receivers from the state budget. Romania needs to cut 150,000 jobs to respect the IMF conditions for the year to come.
Costin says that councils managing communities of 6,000 people have the same number of employees as councils administrating communities of 200,000 people. Many of them are friends, lovers, relatives that don't do anything worth an income, Costin opinionated. In the Health sector, 85% of the budget is spent on salaries, with practically no money left for investments. Plus, Romania has three times the number of necessary high schools.
20 years after the fall of the communism, public services employees are still treating people with the same solid disrespect: tax clerks ignore citizens by taking long coffee breaks, there are long queues to get a train ticket or to post a package. ING chief economist in Romania Nicolaie Alexandru-Chidesciuc says that cutting the number of state employees will not solve the problem. There's a need for training courses, computerised systems and education.
According to him, the state system is not competiti
