Trade union: Finance Ministry workers left vulnerable to coronavirus due to absent protection measures

Finance Ministry personnel are not offered elementary protection measures against the coronavirus epidemic, although Finance Minister Florin Citu announced that the government has the necessary resources and tools to deal with the challenges posed by infections, says the Meridian National Trade Union.

According to Meridian, the ministry doesn't provide border customs office workers minimal help, so that in order to ensure proper protection they resort to their own means or to the "mercy" of other public institutions, such as the public health departments.

"Tax administration employees are not better equipped either and in order to prevent the dangers that may arise in such situations, the citizens have been recommended to use electronic means of remote communication in order to contact the tax offices. Yet the hardest hit are currently the employees of the Anti-Tax Fraud Directorate General, as the positions of anti-fraud inspectors have been discarded by a government decision and they will therefore undergo reorganization; these days they have been relocated and work at the country borders to their vast majority. Given that they do not have a minimum protection against this epidemic and there is a high likelihood that they get sick, as a 'precaution', the management of the institution has decided to have two replacements for each of them on standby," the cited source said.

The Finance trade unionists also say that they have requested proper means of protection against the epidemic right from the onset and, although they have been given assurances that the necessary means will be made available with the support of the institutions in question, nothing has happened so far. AGERPRES