Ileana Ciutan (Pension House), Cristian Busoi (National Health Insurance House) and Narcis Neaga (CNADNR) are the low-profile people who run the state institutions with the biggest budgets. These institutions have more power to decide than ministers do. However, the most “powerful” public employees are mere pawns in political games, considering that their positions are a reward for being loyal to the party. The hundreds of institutions, agencies, and authorities subordinated to the ministries, which have been created in the past few years, generated anomalies in the way power is distributed. One such anomaly is that roads authority CNADNR, an institution that does not belong to any specific ministry (but to a department created in the Government’s structure) has come to have a budget the size of that of the Transport Ministry, for instance.
“The fact that entities that manage huge amounts of money exist is a democratic deficit. People appointed in such institutions are not appointed on merit because they have very little freedom of choice and are given political orders,” explains Doru Lionachescu, president of investment firm Capital Partners.
While there are cases of ministers who don’t not have anything to do with the domain they are in charge of (one example is transport minister Ramona Manescu, who is trained as a lawyer and was a European MP before becoming minister), in institutions with big budgets, the managers tend to have the necessary expertise. All three managers of the mentioned institutions – The Pension House, the Heath Insurance House and CNADNR have experience in the fields where they work: Ileana Ciutan worked for more than ten years at the Pension House in Dolj county, Cristian Busoi is a graduate of the Medicine Faculty and as a parliamentarian he was part of commissions that dealt with health issues, and Narcis Neaga has moved through various departments of CNADNR in the past ten years. However, the performance of the institutions they run has not been impressive.
“Some appointments are meant to reward political loyalty, but if these appointments were made based on competence and professional criteria, not based on political loyalty, it would be a sign of health for society. But history has shown that [appointments are political] more often than not,” says university professor Emil Balan, who specializes in public law at the National School of Political Science and Public Administration (SNSPA).
(English version by Daniela Stoican)