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Senate Chairt Anca Dragu is suggesting a series of criteria for access to the Anghel Saligny local investment project, insisting that the Save Romania Union - Freedom, Unity and Solidarity Party (USR PLUS), the main coalition at rule, does not want a new national local development programme (PNDL) but the Anghel Saligny project, because PNDL 1 and PNDL 2 used to have lots of slippages.
"This is exactly what we do not want, a new PNDL, because we know that these programmes brought investment locally and led to improved standards of living in certain areas, but they also opened many purse strings. There are personal companies, of political parties, that got access to such resources. We know very well that there were toilets 80,000 euros a pop and light bulbs 2,000 euros each and sloping football fields or with a big tree in the middle of the turf. There used to be many slippages. We want to take care of the money of the Romanian citizens and we want the investment to be made logically," Dragu said on Tuesday at the Senate.
Dragu believes that the responsibility for the Anghel Saligny project should lie with the government, not just the Ministry of Development.
"I think there should be more ministries involved - for example, the Ministry of Energy. That would increase accountability and be in line with this concept of transparency and efficiency in the use of public money. (...) We need criteria, total transparency, a platform to monitor projects, we need cost standards, but also quality standards, because there is no use building a cheap bridge if it breaks on first use. We need criteria to distribute financial resources as an investment project unfolds; we know that often projects start and cannot be completed because there is no more money," Dragu said.
According to Dragu, the programme may include hot meals in schools and internet access for everyone projects.
"We can also think of other areas in which the programme can be applied: including hot meals in schools or internet access for everyone would also mean access to telemedicine. That is another component that would increase the Romanians' standards of living., Agerpres informs.
