Romanian prime minister Ilie Bolojan explained why he insists on cutting the number of employees in the local administration, currently 129,000, by roughly 10% (13,000) under the local administration reform to be agreed upon by the ruling coalition members within two weeks.
Bolojan said that only 129,000 positions out of a maximum possible of 190,000 in the local administration are filled, and the 25% cut in the number of positions proposed by development minister Cseke Attila would have resulted in no people going home, Hotnews.ro reported.
He thus explained his request for a 40%-45% cut in the total number of positions in the local administration, which was nearly double the 25% figure initially announced and prompted fierce resistance from most of the political parties in the ruling coalition.
The PM implied he was misguided by the local administration representatives and the Ministry of Development, but turned suspicious when he faced no resistance to the 25% cut proposal. He said he later did some research and realised that the 25% cut would have left all the people in their places.
PM Bolojan came up with more detailed data: only 164,000 positions were created by the local administration out of a maximum possible of 190,000, while the difference from 164,000 to 129,000 is positions not filled. However, these positions need to be accounted for when drafting budget planning, and they are used as a base for calculating the number of top management positions.
PM Bolojan conditioned his stay in the post on a broad support from the ruling coalition for his proposed local administration reform.
“You can’t sit in a position while knowing that you can’t do these [necessary] things… I’m not saying it as a threat, it’s a common-sense observation. Because if we don’t come up with solutions in the administration, the reform package that we approved is incomplete,” PM Bolojan said.
iulian@romania-insider.com
(Photo source: Gov.ro)
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