ANKARA, March 19 (A.A) - The bill on Arrangement of Public Finance and Borrowing Management which is one of the IMF's First Review Conditions, is expected to be legalized by the end of March.
Sources said on Tuesday that the bill was expected to be taken up at the Parliamentary General Assembly and legalized after State Minister Kemal Dervis's return to Turkey on March 24.
IMF also wants issuance of circulars as a support to this bill, which will initiate implementations foreseen by the bill.
Meanwhile, the issue of overemployment at the state economic enterprises (SEEs) is another step that should be taken until the IMF Executive Directors Board meeting in April in which 1.1 billion U.S. dollars of tranche of loan to Turkey will be approved.
In the first phase, overemployment at the SEEs will be determined and a strategy on how this overemployment can be reduced may be enough for approval of the loan tranche.
Within this framework, there exists a tripartite work on determination of overemployment at the SEEs. This situation is being observed by the Treasury, Higher Board of Supervision and the World Bank.
Sources said that World Bank experts were comparing the overemployment at the SEEs on institutional basis with the private companies that had similar structures.
Sources said that the World Bank experts would prepare a report after their works on the overemployment at the SEEs.
This report will be compared with those of the Treasury and Higher Board of Supervision.
Sources said that the Council of Ministers would adopt a public services reform strategy by the end of 2002 in the letter of intent presented to the IMF with the aim to make reform in public services. As a part of preparatory works, a ministers committee is foreseen to be formed by the end of March 2002 to review public functions while it was stressed that the review in question would be concluded by the end of September 2002.
In the letter, it is stressed that workers who accept the voluntarily retirement offer will be let to retire by the end of March 2002 at the latest and necessary payments will be made.
The overemployment will be reduced by one-third by the end of June through voluntary retirement offers and necessary removals and by two-thirds by the end of October 2002. The overemployment will be gradually reduced by the end of June 2003.