INFLATED BUREAUCRATIC APPARATUS COSTS 1.4 BILLION LEI TO BUDGET ANNUALLY – EXPERT

The excessive army of civil servants in the small Republic of Moldova leads to an annual loss of 1.4 billion lei of Budget money, maintains Ex-Chairman of the Standing Committee for Economic Policy, Budget and Finance in the previous Moldovan Parliament Veaceslav Ionita, currently an economic expert in the “Viitorul” [“Future”] Institute for Development and Social Initiatives (IDIS).

The prominent Moldovan economist established in his research that the much-spoken reform of the Moldovan central and local governance launched in 2003 has led to the growth of the number of public bureaucrats in Moldova by 11.7 thousand persons. Before the reform, there were 7.9 officials per 1,000 citizens, and presently – 16.1.

According to very cautious estimates, one official costs the State Budget av. 120,000 lei annually, so since 2003 the country has used a fabulous sum of 20 billion lei for its civil servants. At the moment, the bureaucratic apparatus costs 4 million lei per day to maintain, and this figure is constantly growing, the expert says.

“This ‘anti-reform’ is generating extra sufferings and problems to regional and lo-cal authorities because against the background of a grown number of primarias [local executive authority bodies] by 40% – from 467 to 898, their staffs have been diminished by 25% – from 11.4 down to 9.2 persons, on the average. In other words, fewer primaria employees are now demanded to fulfill a greater (and constantly growing) volume of work”, said Veaceslav Ionita

Dr. Ionita maintains that the Government’s main task – against the background of an aggravating demographic and economic crisis in the country – must be optimization of the bureaucratic apparatus.

“The army of state and municipal officials needs to be reduced by minimum 40%, after which it is necessary to carry out large-scale changes in local governance organs to make them maximum efficient in tackling the problems of the Moldovan society”, stated the expert.