The public administration and the other state-run institutions waste 600 million euros per year, in wage funds for jobs and for civil servants who are simply not there, says Varujan Vosganian, Minister of Economy and Finance. "At least 600 million euros (i.e. 8% of the budget's personnel spending) are funds allocated for non-existent civil servants and for vacancies)," he said.
Under the budget law, the Ministry of Finance allocates yearly sums for personnel spending, sums, which ministries, schools and hospitals are distributing for the payment of wages, bonuses and taxes due for state employees.
However, in the administration and in the other state-run institutions, there are around 8% vacancies, i.e. positions which are there officially, for which sums are allocated in the budget, but which are not filled.
Nonetheless, the money earmarked for these positions never remains unspent: the ministries spend all of it on bonuses or even for hiring new people, "because they can afford it"," says the head of Finance.
The number of civil servants, particularly outside the capital city, is in many cases disproportionate. It is not normal for a commune with 5,000 inhabitants to have twice as many civil servants as another one with the same number of inhabitants, "but this does happen"," he says. According to preliminary calculations made by the Ministry of Finance, released for the first time for ZF, in some counties, the number of civil servants stands at 10 per every 1,000 inhabitants, while counties with a more complicated bureaucratic structure have 26 civil servants per every 1,000 inhabitants.
Additionally, many public institutions have more civil servants than necessary, either due to excessive hiring or as a result of not having cut their personnel when they reduced their scope of activity. Vosganian gave as an example the Employment Agency, which has preserved the number of civil servants it employs since 2000 until now, although the number of unemployed people listed in its records is down from around one million to 350,000 people. During the same period, the institution's annual personnel spending has increased five times, according to the Minister of Finance.
According to data published by the Ministry of Finance, the total costs related to state-employed personnel (civil servants, teachers, doctors etc) stood at 6 billion euros (6.1% of the GDP), with a potential to reach 7.8 billion euros this year, if the 30% growth rate achieved in the first six months of the year is attained.
Vosganian says the waste of funds in certain areas of the public administration has to stop, and that the ministry is looking into ways of cutting these losses with the adoption of next year's budget. A significant set of laws is needed, however, to change this, and "these steps will take time and could meet with opposition from those targeted by them," he explained.
Three weeks ago, Labour Minister Paul Pacurariu proposed a 10% cut in the public sector staff, but such plans were dropped because of trade union protests.
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