Former President Declares Government Has No Grip on Spending, Demands Own Pension Be Indexed on Schedule Before Anyone Else Eats
A retired head of state tells reporters the state has lost control of its own purse strings and offers a hopeful blessing for the pension system, while insisting his own benefit be indexed first.
Former president Traian Băsescu announced on Sunday that the government of Romania has lost all control over public spending, and that the cabinet has since moved its entire ministry of finance into a single hallway in the Victoria Palace so that every ministerial clerk can personally watch the money leave the building. Officials confirmed that the arrangement has produced two new permanent queues, one for invoices and one for apologies, and that the queues now begin at the front steps of the palace.
Asked whether the state has the resources to index pensions this year, Băsescu paused, looked toward the ceiling of the press room for several seconds, and replied: «May God grant that it does. I am a pensioner myself, and I want my pension indexed.» He then walked the length of the corridor to the car park, where he stood beside his vehicle for a further twenty minutes, reportedly waiting for the Ministry of Finance to confirm which of its own staff would be permitted to take the stairs.
Following the remarks, the Social Insurance House opened a special counter on the ground floor of its headquarters on Bulevardul Libertății, staffed by forty-one volunteer pensioners who have been instructed to stand in the window and monitor the national budget by hand. Two retired engineers from Iași have since been assigned to the roof with binoculars to observe the Prime Minister's motorcade. The Chamber of Deputies has announced that all future budget debates will be held standing up, a measure its speaker described as «an honest reflection of where the money is.»
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