INACO:Romanians work for the state over half a year for the least digitized administration

For over half a year, the Romanian works for the state, and the last "fiscal revolution" added five more days per year for this process, says Andreea Paul, chairman of the Initiative for Competitiveness (INACO).

"Public investments are at an all time low, fiscal incomes collected are also at their historic minimum reported to the GDP, and the ratio of the social bill in the total of budgetary expenses are at historic highs. Budgetary wage expenses are in 2018 at the level of those of 2009, reported to the GDP, contrary to the European and global tendencies of reducing the state apparatus. Debts invariably go up in this context. We tax work more and more, and not capital, in an economy where we should increase the base of the active work force hired in the private sector. More exactly, for over half a year, the Romanian works for the the state, and the last "fiscal revolution" has added five more days per year in which the average Romanian worker works for the state. Thus, the day of fiscal freedom became 20 July 2018, as opposed to 15 July in 2017. In other words, until the date of July 20 we work for the state and starting with July 21 the average worker works for himself and for his family. From this perspective, of the working person, we need to analyse the results of the last fiscal amendments, in which the contributions from the employer to the employee were transferred," said Paul.

In the view of the INACO representative, who quotes data from the National Institute of Statistics, the average net salary in public administration reached 4,207 lei in June 2018, double from the medium wage of 2,115 lei, "all these without increasing the quality of public services". On the contrary, "we have the most disorganized and bureaucratic public institutions of the EU. Great attention, because as of fall of 2017, the official statistics does not include the average of the public administration and armed forces or services, neither the staff of Parliamentary cabinets, hired through their own electoral circumscriptions and paid from the forfeiting sums of the MPs. If not, the numbers would have been even higher for the average salary in the public administration. In reality, the gap between the private sector and public sector is even larger," Andreea Paul explains.

Concerning the public bodies' employees, Paul says that Romania goes above the European average, the most bloated European government, with 28 ministers, deputy Prime Ministers and Prime Minister, namely with 25 Ministries, in comparison with the European average of 14 Ministries. On the governing model, public administrations have the same bureaucratic arborescent structure.

At the same time, INACO head mentions that Romania has the most non-digitized European administration, although high-speed internet and Romanian IT are considered world-class quality.

INACO specialists believe also that the public pressure will have to be removed towards a real growth in the Romanians' quality of life.AGERPRES(RO - author: Daniel Badea, editor: Andreea Marinescu; EN - author: Catalin Cristian Trandafir, editor: Maria Voican)