2010年-世界发展银行全球_Romania___Public_Expenditure_and_Institutional_Review___Main_Report_52页_535kb

Summary of Romania Public Expenditure and Institutional Review

Core Content

This report presents a comprehensive analysis of Romania's public expenditure and institutional framework, focusing on both short-term fiscal adjustments and long-term public financial management reforms. It is part of a two-volume study conducted by the World Bank, aimed at helping Romania achieve fiscal sustainability and improve the efficiency of public service delivery.

Key Sectors and Their Challenges

Education

• Key Challenges: Poor quality, lack of relevance to the labor market, and limited access, especially in rural areas.
• Main Constraint: Spending levels are not aligned with outcomes; the education sector spends more on quantity than quality.
• Recommendations:
  • Introduce per capita financing.
  • Increase local autonomy to improve performance incentives.
  • Reform teacher remuneration and evaluation systems.
  • Reduce the number of teaching positions and increase class sizes.
  • Align investment plans with a prioritized resource envelope.

Health

• Key Challenges: Narrow financing base, biased spending towards hospitals, and disparities in access between rural and urban areas.
• Recommendations:
  • Shift focus towards outpatient care.
  • Introduce quality assurance mechanisms.
  • Revise the benefits package.
  • Advance hospital reforms including rationalization.
  • Broaden the tax base for healthcare.
  • Review hospital expansion strategy to achieve savings.

Transport

• Key Challenges: Systemic financing, institutional, and governance issues; disconnect between policy and implementation.
• Recommendations:
  • Develop a sector-wide, medium-term action plan.
  • Restructure roads and railways agencies.
  • Define clear responsibilities for sector actors.
  • Implement cost benchmarking for contracts and projects.
  • Adjust the payment calendar for the Brasov-Bors highway.
  • Reduce service volume to match reduced subsidies in rail companies.

Agriculture

• Key Challenges: Dual farm structure, an aging labor force, and poor planning and financial programming.
• Recommendations:
  • Better utilize EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) funds.
  • Focus on competitiveness-boosting activities.
  • Support medium-sized farmers and rural infrastructure.
  • Align institutions and capacities with policy objectives.

Public Pay and Pensions

• Key Challenges: Nontransparent and fragmented pay practices; high public sector wage bill; unsustainable pension system with a growing deficit.
• Recommendations:
  • Introduce a unitary public pay system aligned with European practices.
  • Align pay with job responsibility and performance.
  • Index pensions to inflation.
  • Equalize retirement age for men and women.
  • Review social contributions and eliminate privileged pensions.
  • Apply the same treatment to "special" pensions as to public ones.
  • Equalize social insurance contributions for special sectors with the rest of the labor force.

General Recommendations

• Short Term: Focus on reducing the budget deficit and reallocating resources towards productive and social ends.
• Long Term: Establish a Medium-Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF), enhance planning and policy-making capacity, and modernize the public sector.

Short Term Fiscal Measures

• Revenue Enhancement:
  • Temporary introduction of a "solidarity" tax.
  • Sale of surplus CO2 emissions rights.
  • Revision of royalty levels.
  • Introduction of electronic procurement for all public entities.
• Expenditure Cuts:
  • Reduce public sector employment and wages.
  • Eliminate low-priority spending.
  • Review and revise public pension and healthcare spending.

Fiscal Context and Challenges

• Fiscal Situation: Public spending increased from 31% of GDP in 2001 to 37% in 2008, while government revenue remained flat at 31-32%.
• Structural Deficit: Romania entered the global crisis with the largest structural deficit in the EU.
• Pro-Cyclical Policy: Recent fiscal policies have been highly pro-cyclical, limiting the ability to support aggregate demand during the crisis.
• Need for Restrictive Budgeting: The government needs to implement a restrictive budget in 2010 and beyond to gradually bring fiscal imbalances under control.

Institutional and Legal Reforms

• Legal Reforms:
  • Strengthen the legal framework for public pay and fiscal policy.
  • Implement the Public Finance Law (PFL).
  • Establish a Performance-Based Budget Process (PBB).
• Institutional Reforms:
  • Restructure tax administration.
  • Modernize the human resources framework.
  • Improve the capacity for policy formulation, programming, monitoring, and evaluation.
• Public Enterprise Sector:
  • Restructure the public enterprise sector to reduce resource drain and improve efficiency.

Conclusion

The report emphasizes the need for both short-term fiscal adjustments and long-term institutional reforms to restore fiscal discipline and improve the efficiency of public service delivery. It highlights the importance of aligning public spending with performance and ensuring sustainable resource allocation to support robust and equitable growth. The government's ability to implement these reforms will be critical in overcoming the economic crisis and achieving long-term fiscal stability.