Romanian PM Citu surprised by high public payroll in Q1

The budget execution in the first three months of the year shows that the public payroll keeps rising, despite the public wages being frozen, according to prime minister Florin Citu.

The head of the Government said that he could not understand the sources of this increase because "the legislation as it is now would not allow this."

Citu announced that he asked the Finance Ministry to draft an extrapolation of the entire public sector's personnel expenses.

"We have an envelope of RON 110 billion (nearly 10% of GDP) in the budget that we will not exceed," he stressed, quoted by Economedia.ro.

Speaking about a new income law for the public sector, PM Citu said that "we need to draft a payroll law as soon as possible."

He added that the new law should not include bonuses unless in exceptional cases. "I asked the advising ministries to submit their point of view on the Labor Ministry's memorandum regarding the salary law. Today I asked the ministries to review the draft so that we can approve this memorandum next week," said PM Citu at the end of the Government meeting.

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