The Romanian Government is sending out a negative message through the inconsistence surrounding CFR Marfă’s privatisation. This was the conclusion presented by the representatives of the civil society during the public debate organised for the adoption of a final privatisation strategy. The public debate was demanded by CFR Marfă’s employee unions, but it was rescheduled twice, because the first session wasn’t attended by any representative from CFR Marfă or from the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure (MTI), which worked closely at the elaboration of the privatisation strategy. During the second session, Anca Boagiu, the new Minister of Transport, was not present. Although the authorities see CFR Marfă’s privatisation as a strategic objective which is meant to eliminate Romania’s economic deadlock, the signals coming from MTI officials seem to say otherwise.
The Romanian Ministry of Transport (MTI) announced that they decided to postpone the appointment of the mandatory in charge of CFR Marfă’s privatisation following the requests made by trade union representatives regarding the organisation of a public debate in order to clarify all the details related to the privatisation process. The first public debate was scheduled in the beginning of September 2010. The participants found out that the ministry did not establish the mandate of the institution that will monitor the privatisation process, this being the first stage of the process which establishes the priorities of the privatisation strategy. Those who attended the first public debate saw this as being less relevant and insisted that the focus should be placed on the actual privatisation strategy. Attending the first public debated, former Minister of Transport Radu Berceanu said that the privatisation will most likely last until mid-2011, but that rescheduling the public debate and the appointment of a new Minister of Transport will surely delay this process even longer.
Trade union representatives demanded that those present at the debate should discuss the opportunity of privatising CFR Marfă in the current strenuous economic context, while the employers’ associations insisted on the impact the privatisation will have on the market (the fact that CFR Marfă will be taken over by a powerful international freight transport operator) and on preventing the creation of a monopole in certain areas of activity, such as intermodal transport and free access to freight terminals.
Rail transport should benefit from equal chances
Radu Berceanu outlined the position of the state regarding CFR Marfă’s privatisation, as well as the need to speed up the process which, hopefully, will balance the situation between road and rail transport (seeing as there isn’t a road freight transport operator). He said that they hope to harmonise the legislation, the investments budgets and taxation system for all modes of transport, especially road and rail freight transport. However, the main requisite is to privatise CFR Marfă. Berceanu claims that CFR Marfă needs a new management, which can run the company based on the current competitive requisites of the freight transport market, having as core the Romanian private railway sector, which continues to gain ground as opposed to the State sector. Private operators have won the contracts that initially belonged to CFR Marfă.
Berceanu believes that this privatisation will increase efficiency and reduce the exploitation costs of the state-owned operator, just like in the case of private operators, whose management comes from the former management boards of CFR Marfă. The success of private companies is mainly due to a change in mentality.
The minister also said that he doesn’t support the fact that the taxes gathered from a particular area of activity are redirected towards that specific area of activity (referring to the fact that the diesel fuel taxes and the infrastructure access fees paid by railway companies are used to finance the construction of new streets and highways). He believes that the lack of investments in the railway sector is due to the small budget funds allocated to the transport sector.
Berceanu gave as example the Czech Republic, which allocates 4-5% of the budget to the transport sector every year, irrespective of the governing party (even though the Czech Republic doesn’t have maritime transport). On the other hand, in the last 20 years, in Romania, less than 3% of the state budget was allocated to the transport sector.
by Alin Lupulescu
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