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Interior Minister Marcel Vela stated during a press conference in Resita on Saturday that the audit carried out at the institutions under the coordination of the Interior Ministry (MAI) do not concern the head of the Department for Emergency Situations (DSU) Raed Arafat, given that the latter is a secretary of state, a political office, to be appointed or replaced by the prime minister, not the relevant minister, Agerpres informs.
"I want it to be understood that the audit is not carried out for a person, a chief inspector or a secretary of state. The person whom you asked about, Raed Arafat, is a secretary of state, not the professional chief of a structure. The secretary of state is a political office, a dignitary proposed and signed under a prime minister's decision. Therefore the relevant minister is not in charge with appointing secretaries of state. It is the prime minister's and the government's decision. As such this is a false issue, which some generate in the public space, probably interested in creating a small diversion. I don't know the cause of it, but I will definitely find it out," Marcel Vela said.
In respect to a possible privatisation of the Mobile Emergency Service for Resuscitation and Extrication (SMURD), the Interior Minister underscored this is not possible and the idea was launched by Victor Ponta. He pointed out that SMURD is a private NGO, made up of individuals, using public money, so an NGO cannot be privatised.
He has argued that the audit carried out at present within the Interior Ministry is taking place because he, as minister, didn't officially take over the assets or the liabilities, as he didn't have a predecessor, because there were no interim minister proposals, the interims were held in office until the expiration of the tenure, according to the Constitution, when the ministry was run by a secretary of state, who could not hand over the assets and liabilities of the ministry as he wasn't a minister. Consequently, Vela explained, it is normal to have a picture of what there currently exists in the MAI, as he does not wish to be held accountable for what the previous ministers, Carmen Dan and Mihai Fifor, had done.
