Young IT Wizzard Joins Romanian PM’s Team

Victor Ponta has recruited a 25-year-old geek to revolutionise the business of public sector job advertising.Prime Minister Victor Ponta on Monday announced that he had hired Cristian Botan, a 25-year-old PhD candidate, to bring more transparency into the work of government job adverts.

Ponta said he had taken on the young man after he “drew attention to one of sorest points of our system, and devised a solution to address it: an online platform.

“I personally intend to reach the young, those who, just like Cristian, want to change the current state of the Romanian system,” Ponta said.

He was referring to the website that Botan launched in March, publishing jobs in the public sector, following a personal investment of some 500 euro.

Botan used information on vacancies gathered from various data available in online sites as well as those available in the Official Gazette, where the authorities are required to disclose vacancies.

Each month, more than 400 positions in the public sector are advertised through the portal.

Media and civic organizations hailed Botan’s initiative, stressing that no one had ever gathered together all the state employment vacancies into one site.

Ponta said he intends to transform Botan’s project into an official source of information on jobs in the state administration.

“For now on, we will take over his website as the official page for announcements of available public jobs,” the Prime Minister said.

“Later, we will come up with an interesting development in the legislative area as well. And Cristian Botan will be part of the team taking this mission forward,” Ponta added.

Some commentators dismissed Ponta’s initiative as a political stunt, designed to look the premier look progressive before the coming elections.

“To hire a young student who had a initiative is a good idea. But he will work in the government for a week. Ponta just wants only to show he is open minded and eager to support young people,” a sceptical comment on the news portal Hotnews.ro. read.

Romania holds parliamentary elections on December 9. The latest polls suggest that the center-left coalition led by Ponta is on course to win the contest hands down.