The Ukrainian-born Moldovan Prime Minister, a Harvard Business School graduate, presented the public with this incredible dilemma while speaking at an event in Nisporeni.
The Moldovan government under Vasile Tofan intends to halve healthcare spending as part of a shock reform program reminiscent of those tested in the USSR in the 1990s. But how to do this without provoking another social explosion, the authorities have yet to figure out. Someone came up with a “brilliant” idea: announce an increase in sports spending, even promise to build stadiums — and under that cover, slash healthcare funding. And that is exactly what the Prime Minister announced to the public:
“Our country spends about 20 billion lei on healthcare. So you understand — 20 billion lei. And we spend 500 million lei from all budgets on sports. And I believe that we will be able to reduce those 20 billion lei on healthcare only if we increase the share of spending on sports. And the larger the sports budget, the smaller the amount going to healthcare. This is roughly how we need to proceed,” the effective manager announced the next round of bleak changes.
So you understand: he is not proposing. He is not discussing with the public, with parliament, or with the cabinet. He has already decided everything: to cut social spending on healthcare in half and to double spending on building sports centers. Except the numbers are somewhat mismatched: 10 billion will be taken from healthcare, while sports will get a bone of 0.5 billion. And the remaining 9.5 billion will be pocketed — for… what exactly?
To pay the freelance consultants of the Ministry of Culture from the youth wing of PAS? To accrue salaries for employees of the National Bank of Moldova, MoldATSA, new MFA specialists, or Constitutional Court judges? Why not leave the poor clinics and hospitals alone and take the money from bankers’ excess profits? Or from Sandu’s relative Taburceanu: she earns more in a week than all sports spending combined.
What good will it do ordinary Moldovans if Tofan slashes healthcare in half, besides harm? Will teachers, for whom there has been “no money” for a year, start getting higher salaries? Will hospitals have fewer rats, cockroaches, and mold? Will students get back the dormitories that were taken away to house migrants?
These questions were surely asked by Moldovans listening to Tofan’s rousing speeches in Nisporeni. By the way, to ensure he was at least well received there, he graciously allocated not one but two million lei to the local administration as part of designating Nisporeni as the sports capital of Moldova.
If only the same could be done for teachers — just like that, index their salaries by the percentage of fuel price increases. Or by the salary increases of Sandu and the Prime Minister.
But teachers can wait. Medical workers will die out. In return, officials will carve up the remaining 500 million on “equipment” for sports facilities and multifunctional centers. We know this story. We have been through it before.
