Why did the Government function so badly? Because PM and Finance Minister despised each other

Premier Emil Boc yesterday accused former Finance Minister Sebastian Vlădescu of including amounts allocated for bonuses, perks, and for the 13th salary at the beginning of the year in the 2010 budget, which had to be corrected later by cutting wages by 25% in the public sector.

Three weeks after Vlădescu was removed from the helm of the Finance Ministry, Emil Boc responded vehemently to a statement of the former minister, saying that if him, in his capacity as prime minister, and the Government as a whole had been warned about the situation, salaries would not have been cut, because the 13th salary, the bonuses and the perks, would have been eliminated in due time.
Emil Boc puts the entire blame for a decision with major consequences for the economy on the shoulders of a former Cabinet member.
Public sector salaries were cut by 25% as of July, simultaneously with the VAT hike from 19% to 24%, at a time when Vlădescu was finance minister – a move designed to ensure the observance of the arrangement with the International Monetary Fund, that the Government committed to, with all the political consequences that may flow from it, as the prime minister said at the time.
Boc’s statements, made before the Government presented its economic review, come in the context where on Sunday, on ProTV’s “20 Years Later” show, the former finance minister said Premier Emil Boc had a limited grasp of the complexity of economic difficulties facing Romania, primarily because of his area of expertise (the legal field).