Child Benefits Are Not the Place for Budget Cuts

The brilliant finance expert, Mart Võtklaev, firmly asserts that the state needs to tighten its belt. The government envisions savings by cutting child benefits and heavily taxing the populace. If this group had sharper insights and smarter thinking, they would notice immediate opportunities to save millions.

The prosecutor's office needs to step up its game.

Lately, the media has reported numerous court cases where, after years-long proceedings, the prosecution material either falls apart or results in an acquittal. The state then has to compensate the citizens who were dragged to court on weak charges. A recent blunder is the "Porto Franco" mammoth saga, where the judge dismissed an absurd accusation, acquitting the defendants. The amount of state resources wasted on years of prosecution, salaries for judges, prosecutors, and support staff, as well as associated costs, can only be speculated upon, as such data is not disclosed. The prosecutor who messed up bears no responsibility for the wasted budget.

This pattern also holds in the case of Judge Eveli Vavrenjuk and her colleagues, who were acquitted on corruption charges. Here, hundreds of thousands, if not a million, were spent over years only to discover the prosecution's flawed case. For ten years, the saga of Kajar Lember has been ongoing, where from a free haircut worth 7 euros, they are trying to construe a monumental corruption drama. How to measure such mishandling, where the embezzlement of millions from Tallinn Port might go unresolved because prosecutors keep recusing themselves? They don't care about the costs to the state, as court proceedings drag on aimlessly, and the prosecutor's office doesn't count the cost.

Something is rotten in a state where the prosecutor's office cannot perform its tasks properly, and courts take years to grind through trivial cases because the media, for some unknown reasons, has blown them out of proportion. If this circus were stopped, millions of euros of state money would be saved.

Wasteful spending is in full swing.

At the state level, a symbol of waste can be seen in the central restriction segment of the Tallinn-Rapla highway. Initially designed to improve safety, this botched solution has significantly increased the number of traffic accidents. According to the Motor Insurance Fund, there have been 20 times more accidents on this road section compared to the time before the barrier was introduced. Yet, officials from the Transport Department merely shrug, admitting that even if people get injured there, they are in no rush to rectify the blunder. The work contradicts its purpose, but at least it's completed and money has been spent.

Such attitudes can be found in all state departments. Arrogant officials who have been sitting in their positions for too long do whatever comes to mind because the ministers, who should guide and monitor their actions, are either weak or indifferent. All their energy is spent on self-praise and attacking the opposition.

A thorough overhaul of the creaky state machine would be a swift solution to the constant financial distress that our finance minister constantly suffers from, like a rodent with a toothache.

Instead of spouting nonsense about the opposition wanting to raise red flags in the parliament hall, the former land surveyor, along with his politically immature companions, should focus on the discrepancies in the work of offices and ministries, where millions could be saved.

Vsevolod Jürgenson