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PSD (Social Democratic Party) MP Alexandru Rafila said on Friday that the establishment of the Agency for the Development of Health Infrastructure, an institution introduced in the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, would lead to the creation of a new "bureaucratic structure" that spends public money.
"First of all, it creates a new bureaucratic structure that spends public money, given that the Ministry of Health already has 6 state secretaries. A president of such an agency who would have legal personality and would be a credit officer means a new one. I do not understand why the duties of the Ministry of Health are transferred or want to be transferred to the agency, and in the draft emergency ordinance there is an untrue mentioning that such an agency is a conditionality in terms of receiving funds from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan. It is untrue," Rafila told a news conference at PSD headquarters.
He added that such an agency would "direct at its discretion" the allocation of resources, and local authorities would be forced to seek the advice that would be provided by the agency.
"The money from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR) is not free money, it is money that we have to give back, we will see what the interest rate will be for this money. I do not want to believe that the proposal of the former minister of Vlad Voiculescu, through which such an agency had to establish a buffer amount of about 2 billion euros to guarantee the construction of hospitals by private operators, with their resources, but guaranteed with this fund by the Ministry of Health and later the intention was to rent these hospitals to the Ministry of Health or to the local authorities. It seems to me a difficult matter to digest both politically, socially, morally, and economically, because you cannot block 2 billion of the money from PNRR to guarantee to some private operators the construction of some hospitals, which, after that, are rented for a very long term, of 25 years, to the authorities. It is a formula that will be harmful for the Romanian state," said Rafila.
