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Health Minister Alexandru Rafila takes issue with the fact that the Health chapter of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP) laying out the sector's financing program has been devised without consulting the Health Ministry, so that there are currently no criteria in place for selecting the hospitals eligible for European money. Instead, the project provides for 25 million euros in funding for consultancy, Rafila told a press conference today.
He said that when he took over at the helm of the Health Ministry "the NRRP technical details where nowhere to be found".
"When I came to the Health Ministry, the NRRP was non-existent in terms of technical details. Former Minister Cseke found it only with great difficulty, on a stick that was later multiplied. I inquired with all 22 relevant structures of the Health Ministry, none of them was consulted or actually participated in devising this program. It was done in - let's not say secrecy - but the Health Ministry knew nothing about it, and now has to implement it," Rafila said.
He also challenges the amount set for EIB consultancy to the nascent Health Infrastructure Development Agency (ANDIS), which is 25 million euros - five times more than the ANDIS operation costs.
"It's very hard for me to believe that it's okay for the 75 ANDIS employees paid a thousand euros a month to get consultancy from people paid 2,000 euros a day, and who will be advising them for hundreds and thousands of days. (...) The operation of the agency itself means 5 million euros, including employee training, whereas the consultancy is five times costlier. I didn't point fingers at anyone, I didn't say that it's legal or not, all I did was request a point of view from the Prime Minister's Control Body for us to know where we stand. ... We needed an independent body to assess this situation. This is going to happen. We have made it transparent for the citizens of this country to know all these things, they are not secret," the Health Minister explained.
He also made it clear that the ordinance approving the creation of the agency is in the internal approval procedure at the Health Ministry and will be then sent to the other ministries that need to issue an opinion, for the goals committed to under the NRRP to be met.
The Health Minister's reaction comes amid claims by USR public policies coordinator Cristian Ghinea that Alexandru Rafila "wants to skirt the construction of hospitals funded under the NRRP" although he has 1.7 billion euros for this purpose.
"I told you (...) the story of ANDIS - the health investment agency that should replace two Ministry directorates that failed on the hospital building task. The agency has NRRP funding to operate on, to get staffed - what does the PSD call 'consultancy', they are not familiar with work. (...) ANDIS was the solution to the Commission's question: OK, we give you 1.7 billion to build hospitals, but who does this? Of course the Health Ministry's upper crust is in a state of commotion. ANDIS is about to come into being and there will be a selection contest for managers (yes, this is also set forth in the NRRP). (...) Their solution? Rafila informed the European Commission that he doesn't want ANDIS at the Health Ministry but at the government's General Secretariat," Ghinea wrote on Thursday on Facebook, Agerpres informs.
