Prosecutors, customs officers and policemen to receive a bonus for keeping secrets

Only 3 days after the Decision of the Parliament instituting a 20% bonus to the wage of the employees for keeping confidentiality came into force, the Government increased the list of bonus beneficiaries. According to a new decision of the Government, adopted on August 1, the civil servants of the local and central public administration, law courts and prosecution offices, financed from the national public budget, will receive a bonus for restricting access to information to the tax payers. According to the Governmental decision nr.863, bonuses constituting 20% of the wage “for keeping very important secrets and of strict secret information” and 15% for “keeping secrets” will be given. Bonuses will be offered to the civil servants working in the staff of the Parliament, Presidency, Government, Ministry of Economy and Commerce, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Internal Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Court of Accounts, Intelligence Service, Custom-guards Service, Protection and State Guard Service, Special Couriers Service, Center for Combating Economic Crime and Corruption, Material Reserves Agency, Public Acquisitions and Humanitarian Aids, Customs Service. The political analyst Igor Botan told Info-Prim Neo that it is not correct to offer bonuses to the persons having access to secret information so that they would not disclose it. On the other hand, for some civil servants the sum of the bonus is very little, so it will not protect the state secrets. Also, Botan is puzzled with the list of beneficiaries which includes civil servants of the local administrations or humanitarian aid areas. The political analyst says that the laws should make delimitation between the information which can be considered a state secret and information of public concern. He considers that due to the bonuses, civil servants will not be very willing to talk with the press, so that they would not be excluded from the list of bonus beneficiaries. In the light of this situation, the press must closely monitor the evolution of the access to information procedure. The director of “Sapatamana” newspaper, Viorel Mihail told Info-Prim Neo that from now on, civil servants will conceal by 20% more information. “However, with the help of a small souvenir, a box of candies or by a tête-à-tête discussion with the source the necessary information can be found out”, Viorel Mihail said. The Governmental Decision as well as Parliament’s are retroactive and came into force on December 1, 2005.