Romanian Government has mysterious plan to sack state employees in order to satisfy President Traian Basescu. Elsewhere in the news, asked by his old comrade Romanian ex-President to address the debate, Mikhail Gorbachev denies any Soviet intervention in Romania's 1989 Revolution. Last but not least, one Hungarian to save Romania's forests.
Gandul reads about the Romanian Government's mysterious plan to sack state employees in order to satisfy President Traian Basescu. The chief of state declared on TV he wasn't happy with the small number of state employees made redundant so far. Ministers got together in a meeting to decide on their response. Officially, they did not touch the redundancy issue. But official sources told Gandul that PM Emil Boc gave a three-week deadline for ministers to list those that can still be laid off.
Health, Agriculture and Regional Development and Tourism ministers initially said they did not remember having talked about redundancies. The latter, Elena Udrea, changed her mind and admitted having talked about it, but only about those already sacked when state agencies were joint or dismantled. Labour minister Mihai Seitan was straight about the fact that they had to assess how many were laid off and how many jobs can still be cut.
The deal with the IMF rules that the budget spending on salaries needs to drop by one billion euros, from 9.4% of the GDP to 8.7%. Ministerial agencies sacked 7,800 employees in 2009 and Finance minister announced 10,000 more job losses in the state-financed sectors for 2010. Later he redrew and denied the figures.
Transport Ministry has already sacked 6,400. Education ministry announced 15,000 jobs to be cut this year. Interior had to sack 17,000 people, but minister Blaga said this was the old plan and a new one needs to be discussed with the IMF. Official figures read 7
