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A first complete report on the Bucharest City Hall (PMB) has already been sent to the National-Anti-Corruption Directorate (DNA), Finance Minister Florin Citu wrote on Facebook on Monday evening, according to Agerpres.
"Let it be very clear to everyone: the first report completed on PMB has already been sent to DNA," Citu said.
A few hours earlier, Citu announced, also on Facebook, that the total amount the Finance Ministry inspectors calculated as damage incurred by PMB, following their control at PMB is approximately 200 million lei.
"The total amount that the MFP inspectors calculated as damage after their control at PMB is about 200 million lei [some 40 million euros]," said Citu.
Citu held a news conference on Monday where he he spoke about a control of the Ministry of Public Finance's Economic-Financial Inspection at the Bucharest City Hall. The control was started on January 30, 2020 and lasted until March 10, 2020.
"The control action was suspended on March 11, 2020. At that time, access of the inspection team to the headquarters of the city hall was banned under a decree of then general mayor 569 of March 10, 2020 and thus the suspension was ordered of activities involving interaction from outside PMB. We were not allowed to do this control even remotely. Laptops of the employees of the Ministry of Public Finance were seized for a while in the Bucharest City Hall. We got them back after that," said Citu.
He mentioned that several irregularities had been discovered and that the control action would be resumed.
"We will resume the inspection at the Bucharest City Hall to verify investment on public funds as well as other unverified control objectives. So we continue the control of what we could not verify so far. I told you that this control comes after a very long period in which no control was made at the Bucharest City Hall. Moreover, at this moment we carry out an inspection control at 5 companies set up by the Bucharest City Hall and of course the economic and financial accounting activity of the other companies is to be verified. So, as we promised, we do this at all public institutions. It is clear that we need to know very well how public money is managed; my personal opinion is that at the Bucharest City Hall the money allocated - and it is just my personal opinion, we will see what the control and courts have to say - but the money for the heat energy subsidy, for transmission existed, they were in the budget, revenues came to supplement the revenues and yet the funds ended up elsewhere. They arrived under contracts for other destinations. We need to find out where that money went and of course all those responsible will be called to account for it," said Citu.
