LACKING A FULLY POWERED GOVERNMENT, Local administration is on the brink of collapse

• Mayoralties are no longer functional due to lack of funds

• Employees haven"t been paid in months

• Quality of public services is dropping, and acts of corruption are becoming increasingly frequent

The political crisis and financial difficulties have brought local public administration on the brink of collapse.

Lacking a fully powered Government, more and more mayoralties in all of Romania"s counties, are beginning to run out of money to operate, and their employees claim that they haven"t been paid in months.

Under these circumstances, efficiency suffers and citizens are becoming unhappy with the quality of services, and the system is at risk of becoming completely deadlocked.

Gabriel Chifu, vice-president of the Federation of Public Administration Unions "Publisind", warns that "generalized chaos is certain to happen, unless we get a stable government soon which solves these financial troubles".

He emphasized that "there are many mayoralties that can hardly meet their current expenses, including paying the wages of their employees".

A deadlock of the public administration would practically mean that there would be no one left to solve citizens" issues, which would endanger their fundamental rights and liberties.

• Employees have no motivation to do their jobs

Gabriel Chifu also claims that public sector employees are "terrorized" by the financial woes of their employers and the audits of the Court of auditors, which resulted in cutting the bonuses on which their livelihood depended.

Gabriel Chifu said: "Public sector workers make between 700 lei and 1400 lei, and in some cases, the bonuses that were cut would amount to 100 lei. Think about how much 100 lei means for a civil servant with a 700 lei wage. Under these circumstances, not only is small scale corruption likely to increase, but we run the risk of going back to the way things were in 1993-1994, when corruption was rampant!".

When asked if, under these circumstances, public sector workers have any motivation to do their work and to serve citizens, Gabriel Chifu replied: "When there are no more funds to pay wages, which are overdue, and when working under atrocious conditions, who could do their work efficiently?".

Mayoralties have wage and utilities arrears

Iacob George, vice-president of the National Union of Public Sector Workers (SNFP), in charge of the local public administration, who emphasized that in order to solve this situation, the country needs a fully powered government, which can amend the state budget or draw up the law of public budget for 2010.

The vice-president of the SNFP said that "there are employees who haven"t worked in months", due to the fact that an increasing number of mayoralties that are in trouble due to the economic and financial crisis, which now overlaps with a major political crisis.

"People are pushed to their limit, they have loans, they are indebted and they are living on borrowed money", said Iacob George.

The vice-president of the SNFP also warned that public sector workers are now forced to return bonuses amounting to around 25% of the wages they received.

"We made an appeal to reason, and we, as a union, have asked people to continue working until we can come up with a solution and we get a new government that we can have a dialog with, because we are running the risk of a huge deadlock", said the leader of the SNFP, who added: "Considering that winter is coming, and household overhead expenses are increasing, you"d want to be anything else but a public sector worker in Romania in 2009!".

Transparency International Romania: "Political instability leads to corruption"

Iacob George blames laws which required certain structures and jobs to be created, and mayoralties for the current liquidity crisis etc.

The vice-president of the SNFP said: "We did not choose to overburden the mayoralties with an excessive number of employees, we were required to do so by law. Mayoralties that would not comply with the legislation drafted by the central administration, ran the risk of major fines. And now that the money has been exhausted, we have a very difficult situation to handle".

Under these circumstances, there in an increasing risk of corruption cases, claims Victor Alistar, executive manager of Transparency International Romania (TI-R).

"Political instability always leads to corruption", Alistar said, adding that, especially in the administrative sector, the phenomenon is very likely to escalate.