Finland has smaller cabinet after two ministers' resignation

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The President of Finland Sauli Niinisto approved the Left Alliance's resignation from the coalition government on Friday, and agreed to keep a smaller size of the cabinet by not appointing new ministers.

Niinisto released Paavo Arhinmaki, chair of the Left Alliance, from his duties as Minister of Culture and Sport, and Merja Kyllonen, another member of the Party, from her duties as Minister of Transport as of April 4, said a government press release.

At the same time, the president approved the ruling parties' agreement made earlier this week that the ministerial responsibilities held by Arhinmaki and Kyllonen would be distributed among current ministers, and the governmental duties would be redistributed.

As agreed by the cabinet, Henna Virkkunen, National Coalition MP and Minister of Public Administration and Local Government will take the duty of the former Transport Minister and appointed as Minister of Transport and Local Government.

Pia Viitanen, Social Democratic MP and the minister of Housing and Communication was designated to handle matters of the responsibilities left by the former Culture and Sport Minister and to use the title of Minister of Culture and Housing.

In addition, Krista Kiuru, the Minister of Education was appointed as the Minister of Education and Communications.

The decision not to appoint new ministers, according to Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen, was partially due to the consideration of cost saving.

The resignation of the two ministers will result in dismissal of some state secretaries, special assistants and other staff, who were subordinate to them.

In Finland, a state secretary's salary is as the same as minister's, which is about 9,000 euros (12,324 U.S. dollars), and special assistant's salary is around 4,000 to 6,000 euros, according to national broadcaster YLE.

The dismissal of the two ministers and part of their subordinates, therefore, would save a considerable amount of personnel costs for the government.

Finnish media responded positively to the government's decision on reducing number of ministers, saying that it is "a good signal" to the citizens that the government also would like to cut down its operations, just after the ruling parties proposed the painful spending cut package, said the Finnish Daily Hesingin Sanomat.

The Left Alliance, which has 12 seats in the 200-member parliament, decided to quit the government a week ago after opposing a spending cut package agreed by five other parties of the coalition government.

Until the left party's withdrawal, the Finnish government had been a six-party coalition cabinet led by Katainen's National Coalition Party since 2011. The remaining five parties in the coalition government, nevertheless, still retain a parliamentary majority with 112 seats.

The Left Alliance, a left-wing political party, was founded on the basis of the Finnish People's Democratic League and the Communist Party of Finland in 1990.