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The Social Democratic Party (PSD) on Friday voiced its "total" support for the Health Minister's initiative to halve the consultancy money under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP) and categorically rejects the claims of the Save Romania Union (USR) that WHO consultancy for the NRRP would serve Minister Alexandru Rafila's personal interests.
"PSD fully supports the action of Health Minister Alexandru Rafila, who halved the NRRP consultancy money, much to the despair of the Save Romania Union. The accusations and insolent invectives of the USR representatives cannot conceal the truth! The 50 million euros initially intended for consultancy for the Health component of the NRRP in the USR version were cut to 21.25 million euros. This is a decrease by 57.5% compared to what former USR Minister of European Funds Cristian Ghinea had arbitrarily pinpointed without consulting anyone from the Health Ministry, when he devised the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, with a total lack of public transparency," the PSD statement shows.
According to the Social Democrats, this adjustment was made "in an absolutely legal and institutional manner", after successive rounds of consultations with the World Bank, the European Investment Bank and the World Health Organization, following which the WHO fully assumed the necessary technical assistance for Romania to fulfill the NRRP milestones.
"The Romanian government approved the partnership with the WHO as early as in May. In fact, the WHO specializes in public health policies and has recently participated in the reform of the health system in several countries, such as Greece, for example. It is deplorable that the USR representatives, desperate for public attention, choose a hypocritical attitude and deliberately ignore the truth that the World Health Organization was included in the NRRP and repeatedly mentioned as a potential partner of Romania, by Cristian Ghinea himself," the PSD said.
The Social Democrats also point out that Alexandru Rafila was Romania's representative to WHO and not an employee of the organization.
"USR's lies cannot make serious truths be forgotten and cannot cover the incompetence shown by its representatives through the disastrous management of public health, when they were at the helm of the Health Ministry and acquiesced to the unnecessary import of tens of millions of vaccines in addition to the necessary amount, for which we are compelled to uselessly pay one billion euros," the statement also says.
AGERPRES
