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Bucharest Prefect Toni Grebla spoke on Tuesday about the "indolence" of the local authorities regarding the seismic retrofitting of buildings, as "year after year" European funds available at the Development Ministry remain unspent.
"A concept called 'administrative capacity' has been around for some time now, but I would replace it with indolence - the indolence of certain administration employees who do not thoroughly prepare the projects for building rehabilitation, for the seismic retrofitting of buildings to start. In the last 15 years, no municipality - including the municipality of Bucharest, or especially the municipality of Bucharest - cannot claim that they didn't have money for building rehabilitation. Year after year, funds from the Development Ministry, European funds, remain unspent because we are not capable to produce seismic reinforcement projects and put them into practice. I think that in 2022, just a handful of buildings underwent earthquake retrofitting," Grebla said in a press statement.
He pointed out that funding is earmarked under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan for building reinforcement and that local authorities must mobilize to access them, adding that, according to reports of the State Construction Inspection, the works carried out so far comply with the plans and the reinforced buildings can withstand earthquakes of 8 degrees on the Richter scale.
The Prefect added that in the event of an earthquake, the population can be temporarily sheltered in schools, state-owned institutions or sports halls. AGERPRES
