The Boc Paradox: to know what you have to do, how to do it, to have the opportunity to fix it and to still wait around to go bankrupt

The Boc Paradox: to know what you have to do, how to do it, to have the opportunity to fix it and to still wait around to go bankrupt

The Boc Government is doing everything it can to secure the title of most incapable Cabinet in Romania's post-Communist history, of expert in wasting public money, of having a Ph.D. in avoiding any anti-crisis measure and of a champion in avoiding facing the serious problems of the economy.

If last year, when they started out on the road to a 7.1% GDP recession with a 2% growth target, the Boc Cabinet was able to use the excuse of the worldwide economic disaster that shook to its very core the weak, adobe brick-like, foundations of Romanian economy, right now there's no excuse and no means to avoid the truth: it was simply unable to stop Romania's decline.

Bank economists are now talking of a 3% GDP recession, as compared to the 0.5% estimated by the Government and the IMF. A large part of the difference between these two numbers, which will probably mean more layoffs in the private environment and, most probably, new or higher taxes and duties, was caused by raising VAT to 24%.

Instead of laying off state employees, mostly from public administration, canceling any and all tenders and projects not hardwired to today's economic reality and verifying all of Romania's pension system to detect the frauds there, the Government has hoped that it would be saved, as always, by the people, and by the people's appetite for shopping.

However, the people doesn't really have jobs to have any money for shopping, and proof of that are the more than 300,000 private sector employees terminated last year. The people, should they have a job, now have to do with a smaller salary and a larger monthly bank bill. And, in the end, I don't think the people wants to work to support a state that doesn't do its job, a state that doesn't guarantee its safety, health, education or justice, as per the law (the list of weird and confusing decisions taken by judges or of "simple" errors of prosecutors, seems endless).

However, the state was also encouraged by the fact that many Romanians unfortunately vote for presidents that promise economic welfare although that's none of their business (it's the Government's), or mayors that build parks and statues instead of fixing heating stations or heating agent transportation networks (which would mean paying less money for heating in winter).

Elected as they were, as representatives of executive power in Romania, Boc Cabinet members and their party colleagues, as well as coalition partners, should have been able to end the recession. They had everything they needed to at hand: a list of things they had to do (the IMF took care of this one), a good year (the first year after the presidential elections, so the largest possible time distance until new elections), and a noble cause (saving the economy, saving Romanians, from a crisis) that would convince the people to swallow the bitter pill of tough reforms. And they still got it wrong.

VAT was raised because the state was not restructured. Because instead of opening up dozens of giant construction yards and providing fiscal incentives to companies the state decided to keep all the money, and some extra, all to itself. Because the state didn't cut as much as it had to, and when it had to, of state employees, it had to ask more of private environment. Because the private environment can no longer pay with its own money for the incompetence of the state, Romania's economy continues to shrink day after day, while all the other economies in the region are already positive again.

As compared to all the other disastrous governments Romania has had so far, that of Prime Minister Boc seems to be the weakest for one main reason: it had everything it needed on hand, and it still screwed up at a time when the only option it was not allowed to go for was screwing up.

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