Financiarul

The ‘luxury’ wages of many of the public workers have been kept ‘ secret’ so far, but in accordance with the new unified wage law no employee paid from the public money will have a wage higher than the head of state, ruling Democratic Liberal (PD-L) deputy Cristian Dugulescu told a news conference on Thursday.

He stressed, however, that the Law no. 330/2009 on the public sector unified wage is perfectible, though it has certain loopholes, as there are some commissions that have been excepted from a wage cap. He cited the leaders of the National Securities Commission, of the Insurance Supervision Commission and of the Commission for the Private Pensions System Supervision.

‘I do not know what happens in these commissions, but I can tell you they have wages of around 20,000-30,000 euros a month for their presidents and vice presidents as well as for the members of the Administration Boards. This is not normal and the situation should be settled. By this modification of the Law no. 330, we (the PD-L) proposed that the highest wage paid to a public worker should be the Romanian President’s. The wage proposed for these commissions is one paid to a state secretary’, Dugulescu explained.

He said that among those who left Parliament in order to get a job in the state sector – for the very reason of getting money benefits that ‘exceed the U.S. Vice President’s salary three times, i.e. some 600,000 dollars a year’ – are former Liberal Vice Speaker of the Deputies’ Chamber Bogdan Olteanu, who now works at the National Bank of Romania and Conservative Party president Daniela Popa, who works at the State Insurance Commission.

He hailed Ionut Popescu’s decision who had announced he would give up his current wage from the Property Fund starting next month, in order to be paid a state secretary’s wage of around 4,000 lei. (1 euro=4.1 lei). Dugulescu told he hopes the lawmakers would vote for the bill and that the unified public wage law should become applicable.