Gov't Runs Out Of Money For Home Building

• Nastase Government authorizes A.N.L. and National Investment Company to borrow 6,500 billion ROL from C.E.C.

• The money will be used to complete governmental program of building 38,000 homes and 446 gyms

The Government no longer has the money to finance, by budgetary means, the completion of the governmental program of building 38,000 homes and 446 gyms. So The Government has decided to "quietly' issue an emergency ordinance authorizing State-held Savings Bank (C.E.C.) to lend 6,500 billion ROL to The National Housing Agency (A.N.L.) and The National Investment Company (C.N.I.). The Social Democrat Party (P.S.D.)'s ruling program stipulates that all 38,000 homes and 446 gyms are to be ready by the end of its current term. Since the budget deficit prevents The Government from further financing this program through The State Budget, The Government has come up with a solution in the form of... an emergency ordinance. "According to the law, if the financial resources annually allocated to these two programs from the budget of The Ministry of Transportation, Construction and Tourism are insufficient, A.N.L. and C.N.I. can disburse the necessary amounts of money from their own funds, pending the recovery of the respective amounts from the overall amount allocated to such programs from the budget of The Ministry of Transportation, Construction and Tourism," reads the substantiation note attached to the emergency ordinance in question and signed by Minister Miron Mitrea.

A.N.L. general manager Corneliu Popescu told "Bursa:" "We need to complete the construction of the 38,000 homes for young people, as stipulated in The Program of The Ministry of Transportation, Construc-tion and Tourism. However, A.N.L. does not have enough resources to cover the costs, nor the capacity to pay back a commercial loan of such proportion. Since The State Budget cannot disburse the additionally needed funds either, the solution is to take a public loan from C.E.C."

C.E.C. president Constantin Teculescu believes that The Government has found "a democratic solution" to finance A.N.L. and C.N.I. projects. "The Government has acted in a democratic manner by issuing an emergency ordinance, which Parliament can reject, instead of simply issuing a government resolution." Nevertheless, it is hard to believe that P.S.D. voting machine in Parliament will sabotage its own government and reject the ordinance.

The decision to have C.E.C. finance A.N.L. and C.N.I. projects was made after discussions with C.E.C. representatives. The C.E.C. president told "Bursa:" "The National Housing Agency has posted good, but insufficient collateral for a loan this size. The emergency ordinance is a guarantee to us. Under this document, The Ministry of Transportation pledges to reimburse the loan." Teculescu also told us that the emergency ordinance in question was also necessary because C.E.C.'s formal core business statement did not allow it to grant loans of this nature: "The ordinance extends C.E.C.'s core business statement so as to enable us to give loans to A.N.L. and C.N.I. as well, and not just to individuals, small- and medium-sized companies and central and local authorities. These loans will not affect the amount of loans we grant to individuals.

Whichever the case is, we fail to see why The Government did not make the ordinance public if this decision is so great...