EnglishCătălin Deacu
The Minister of Agriculture, and vice-president of the PSD, Ilie Sârbu yesterday said at the end of a press conference, that his party will most likely discuss the issue of the Minister of the environment, Nicolae Nemirschi, once the parliamentary commission announces the results of the investigation on the matter.
Nemirschi is currently being investigated by a commission of the Parliament for awarding through negotiation with no call for tender a contract worth close to EUR 500,000 for the promotion of the Operational Program for the Environment Sector.
The statement of Ilie Sârbu comes as the former Minister of Youth and Sports, Monica Iacob Ridzi, who is also being investigated by a Parliamentary Commission, resigned on Tuesday, apparently following a discussion with the leader of the Democratic Liberal Part (PD-L), Prime Minister Emil Boc, due to the damage she caused to the public image of the liberal-democrats, and of the Government itself.
There are voices claiming that after PD-L withdrew its support for Monica Iacob Ridzi following the Youth Day scandal, PSD may be forced to take the blame for the Nemirschi case, again due to damage to the public image of the government.
Government to discuss the issue of VAT for foodstuffs on Monday
Yesterday, at the headquarters of the Ministry of Agriculture, minister Ilie Sârbu presented the track record of the first six months of his tenure, and said that the foodstuffs VAT issue which has yet to be solved, will be discussed on Monday in a Government session.
Sârbu mentioned that the new VAT level has not yet been decided. Some of the numbers going around say that the VAT may be cut from its current 19% level to 9%, 6% or 5%.
After the Senate last year enacted a legislative initiative which intended to cut VAT to 5% for bread, meat, milk, vegetable oil and sugar, the list has been pared down to only include raw bread, unfrozen chicken and unpasteurized milk.
The code of good practice, in an extraordinary parliamentary session
On the issue of the Code of Good Conduct, -a project which was initially adopted through an emergency decree which later wound up being debated in the Parliament in order to be enacted as a law - the Minister said he was unhappy with how the works were going.
"Perhaps I made a mistake in giving in and allowing this Code to go to the Parliament for debate, but this is also due to the large number of decrees", Sârbu said. The Minister mentioned that the Code may be debated in the extraordinary session of the Parliament.
State of calamity
When asked whether the Ministry of Agriculture received demands for declaring the state of calamity anywhere in Romania, Ilie Sârbu said that this hasn"t happened for the moment, but he said that this could change in the coming days.
Sârbu mentioned that there are areas in the country where 50% or more of the crops are endangered, but there are also areas where the output per hectare is very good.
The holiday bonus scandal
The Minister of Agriculture is convinced that public sector workers will sue the Ministry for not paying them their bonuses, and he said that these bonuses will be paid, either voluntarily or by court ruling.
Ilie Sârbu said: "I am convinced that the employees of the Ministry will sue the Ministry. This is because a precedent has already been set. If we do not pay the bonuses willingly, we will be forced to pay them by court ruling, we don"t have a choice. Unfortunately, the courts are now allowed to have their say on the national budget, and on the budgets of the Ministries".
However, the Minister said that the employees of the ministry should seriously think whether their holiday bonuses are more important than their jobs.
In turn., the secretary general of the ministry, Miron Moldovan, said that so far, 1 million lei in holiday bonuses have already been paid, out of a total of 28 million lei.
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