Romania’s ’09 Budget Is Illegal, Immoral, Top Secret – Opposition VP

01 feb. 2009, 17:02, English

"The draft state and social insurance budgets for 2009, as they were presented by the prime minister, the finance minister and other ministers who were allowed to talk, may be considered illegal, immoral and top secret,” said Nicolaescu, the country’s former health minister.

Nicolaescu explained that the draft budget approved in the Cabinet meeting doesn’t observe legal provisions because it doesn’t include the budgets of the two chambers of Parliament, thus breaching the law on public finance.

"The budget was illegally approved by the Government and cannot be sent to Parliament until the Chamber of Deputies approves its own budget. From what the Senate chairman said so far, I understand the situation is similar in Senate, where they want to reduce the budget," the liberal official said.

He added the budget is also illegal because it stipulates an increase of 5% in teachers’ wages, thus breaching the law which sets increases of 28%, and the government’s statement that the 5% increase covers the inflation rate is “another lie”, as it only covers 2.75% of the inflation rate.

The liberal official said the budget is immoral because “the numbers it is based on prove the coalition breaks its own promises made during elections" and prove election promises were exaggerated, untrue and only meant to secure votes.

Nicolaescu added that, following numerous meetings held day and night by coalition partners, the governing coalition announced Thursday that it approved the state budget and social insurance budgets, but gave no concrete figures.

He concluded that with the two budget drafts, the government is placing itself above the law and denotes “ignorance, arrogance or slickness”.

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