Prime Minister announces new package of measures on high salaries in public sector

The Government is preparing a new package of measures to verify very high salaries in the public sector, while the situation at MoldovaGaz will be examined separately, since the state holds only 35% of the company’s shares and has limited possibilities to intervene, Prime Minister Vasile Tofan said last night.

The Prime Minister said he shares citizens’ dissatisfaction with very high salaries in some public institutions and recalled that one of the first decisions taken after the Government was sworn in was to launch an analysis of the remuneration of employees in the public sector.

“Certainly I share Moldovans’ outrage regarding these outrageous salaries. That is why one of the first decisions, at the first Government meeting, was to come by July 31 with a set of measures to curb and bring a bit of order to these outrageous salaries,” Vasile Tofan told a TV show.

According to the Prime Minister, in just one week data available for 125 public institutions were analyzed, in those cases where the Government had access to salary information.

“We focused, in a first phase, on 125 institutions. I admit, this does not cover all of them, but where we had access to data and could check the figures, we concentrated primarily on those,” he said.

Vasile Tofan noted that the analysis was not based on information supplied by the institutions, but on data from the State Tax Service, in order to reflect all income received by employees.

“We did not go to the institutions to ask for the figures. We went to the Tax Office, because there we can see exactly what goes onto the card. There you can find the salary, bonuses, premiums and material aids,” the Prime Minister explained.

He reiterated that the analysis identified 439 public sector employees who received net monthly incomes of over 50,000 lei, an amount that includes base salary, supplements, premiums and other payments.

Asked whether MoldovaGaz employees are included in this analysis, after information appeared in the public space regarding the remuneration of interim director Vadim Ceban, the Prime Minister clarified that the company is not part of the first verification package.

“MoldovaGaz is not included here. It will be part of an additional package,” said Vasile Tofan.

He explained that the Executive cannot intervene directly in the company’s salary policy because of its shareholder structure.

“At MoldovaGaz I am not the kind of person who comes with populism. We can have a certain influence over the members of the Board of Directors appointed by the state. Beyond that, the state of the Republic of Moldova is a 35% shareholder and there are certain things we cannot influence,” the Prime Minister declared.

He added that the future of MoldovaGaz is a broader issue that will have to be resolved at the state level.

“What we do with MoldovaGaz in general is a much bigger question that we must decide as a state,” Tofan said.

On July 31, Tofan presented the results of a preliminary analysis of remuneration in some public institutions. The checks covered approximately 40,000 employees, and the data showed that 439 people, the equivalent of 1.1% of the total, have net monthly incomes of over 50,000 lei. Following the analysis, the Government announced a set of measures that includes manual verification of the 100 highest salary packages, temporary suspension of bonuses, supplements and material aids for salaries under review, publication of an online catalog with salary levels, and periodic reporting of remuneration by heads of public institutions. The Prime Minister stressed that high salaries do not automatically represent an abuse, but unjustified payments from public funds will be investigated and, where appropriate, eliminated.