What the newspapers say: May 17, 2011
Sources claim that PM Boc will remain Prime Minister after a meeting last night with the President despite rumours regarding a possible replacement with an independent prime minister. Elsewhere in the news, Romanian hospitals could be modernized with funds offered by EU, Norway or Switzerland but managers fail to set up viable projects. Under IMF pressures the government committed to set up a mechanism to verify the rich. Romanian IT programmers dominated the Yahoo! Open Hack Europe.
Evenimentul Zilei reads on Tuesday quoting anonymous sources that after a meeting with the President, PM Boc is sure to keep his position despite recent rumours regarding the possibility to replace Boc with an independent PM. On the other hand, Boc declared at the national public television, TVR, that Democratic Liberals had no talks regarding government changes. Romania has a government and the government has a Prime Minister which is why we deal with other problems, Boc said.
Our main concern is to strengthen the road we took to exit the crisis and we need to continue reforms, Boc said. He said that the mandate of a Prime Minister does not compare to that of a mayor as it depends on many factors when the Prime Minister’s mandate ends.
Elsewhere in the news, many hospitals could be modernized with money from the EU, Norway or Switzerland if hospital managers would come up with viable projects, Romania libera reads. However, they complain of lack of money for co-financing. Of over 400 hospitals existent in Romania, only 100 managed to access EU funds.
Just like other sectors, tourism, agriculture, the health sector did not manage to absorb many EU funds. If in Bucharest these projects could not be accessed because it is considered a developed area, managers across the country did not struggle enough. They are either not informed, or have budgetary restrictions or cannot coordinate a project.
Moreover, political and legislative instability also lead to the same situation. Funds are available only until 2013 and funds in the health sector were accessed with some difficulty, Bucharest General Council expert in EU funds Cristina Racoceanu said.
Under IMF pressure the government committed to set up a mechanism to check the rich and the way they accumulated their wealth, Romania libera reads. Romanian Fiscal Administration director Blejnar said last year that there are many companies with debts in Romania but with very rich owners who in the last years did not pay their dues.
The government adopted in March the legislative framework and presented three methods of verification: checking the sources of the funds which presumes a comparison between spending made in a year with declared revenues. The second method is to check financial influxes which see the control of the money flow.
Finally, the third method the patrimony method determines taxed revenues based on the increase of the patrimony. Authorities however claim that the first checks will be started next year because for the analysis revenue statements on 2011 are needed. However, the system cannot work because there is no necessary IT system nor experts.
Gandul reads that Yahoo representatives in the jury of the Yahoo! Open Hack Europe appreciated the programming abilities of Romanians who proposed projects in areas like the civil society, tourism or politics. The most awarded member of the competition was Alexandru Badiu who presented three programs made in 24 hours.