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).