Radio România Internațional

Tag: embezzlement

  • January 28, 2024 UPDATE

    January 28, 2024 UPDATE

    IMF An International Monetary Fund mission
    headed by Jan Kees Martijn will be in Bucharest
    between January 29 and February 1, to review the latest economic and financial
    developments. The previous IMF visit to Romania was last autumn, when IMF
    experts conducted their annual analysis of the Romanian economy. At that time, Jan
    Kees Martijn said estimates were pointing to a budget deficit of 6% of GDP for
    the end of 2023, and of 5% in 2024, as well as to an economic growth rate of 2.3%.
    Romania has no ongoing agreements with the IMF at present, but the Fund
    conducts regular visits to review financial and economic indicators. The PM Marcel Ciolacu voiced optimism with
    respect to the IMF’s assessment. He explained that Romania still has problems
    meeting a benchmark in the National Recovery and Resilience Programme, as the
    EC believes Romania has too low SME taxation levels.


    DRUGS The Romanian justice minister Alina Gorghiu requested the
    emergency endorsement of the bills against drug trafficking and drug use. A
    first bill concerns the set-up of the Drug Trafficking Register and of regional
    rehab centres for drug addicts. A second bill eliminates suspended sentences
    for drug trafficking. On Friday, after the Justice and Home Affairs Council,
    the interior minister Catalin Predoiu announced that Romania set up a task
    force integrating several institutions involved in the fight against drug
    trafficking. He said Romania is on the front line of the crackdown on
    international drug trafficking networks, and welcomed the Council’s decision to
    include Romania’s and Bulgaria’s air and maritime borders in the Schengen area.
    According to the Romanian official, EU member countries should focus on curbing
    drug trafficking in ports, through an integrated international platform.


    PRICES In Romania, the mark-up for basic foodstuff prices may be capped
    for another 3 months. The announcement was made by Marcel Ciolacu recently, as
    the capping scheme is due to come to an end soon. According to the PM, a
    decision will be made following talks with all stakeholders. The agriculture
    minister told Radio Romania that a discussion in this respect will be held on
    Monday. He explained that according to data made public by the National
    Statistics Institute and the Competition Council, the measure has been
    effective. The agriculture minister added that the introduction of further
    products in the list is being considered. The emergency order passed by the
    government last summer in order to contain the effects of inflation saw the
    temporary capping of mark-ups for several basic foodstuffs, including bread,
    milk, yogurt, flour, eggs, chicken and pork. The measure was subsequently
    extended and further products were included.


    UN The UN secretary general, Antonio Guterres, Sunday called on the
    countries that have suspended funding for the UN agency for Palestinian
    refugees (UNRWA) to ‘at least guarantee’ the continuity of UNRWA operations,
    which are vital for 2 million people, AFP reports. The UN body, which is the
    main provider of humanitarian aid in Gaza, Friday announced firing a number of
    employees accused of involvement in the Hamas attack in Israel on October 7,
    2023. In turn, the director of the UN body, Philippe Lazzarini, warned that the
    vital assistance granted by UNRWA is about to end because of funding issues. Israel
    demands the resignation of Philippe Lazzarini and the termination of the
    agency’s work in Gaza after the war. A number of countries, including the US, Canada,
    UK, Italy and Germany, have suspended all future funding to the UNRWA.


    GAC The state secretary for European affairs with the
    Romanian foreign ministry, Daniela Gîtman, takes part in the General Affairs
    Council (GAC) meeting in Brussels on Monday. The agenda includes a policy
    debate on the legislation devoted to safeguarding European democracy, and the
    presentation of the priorities of the Belgian presidency of the EU Council,
    followed by an exchange of opinions between the participating ministers and
    state secretaries for European affairs. The GAC meeting will also include a new
    round of talks on country reports, under the annual rule of law dialogue.


    UKRAINE Six months after the start of the Russian invasion, Ukrainian
    defence officials and corporate executives tried to embezzle USD 40 mln
    intended for arms procurement, according to SBU, Ukraine’s main security and
    intelligence agency, quoted by international
    news agencies. The attempted embezzlement took place in August 2022, with the
    money originally earmarked for the procurement of 100,000 mortar rounds, which
    were never delivered. One of the suspects was apprehended while trying to leave
    the country, SBU announced. Ukraine has seen several corruption scandals since
    the start of the war in February 2022. In August 2023, president Volodymyr
    Zelenskyy dismissed all the regional officials in charge with army enrollments, on
    grounds that they were providing recruitment exemptions for money. Curbing
    corruption is one of the main conditions that Ukraine must meet in order to
    join the European Union.


    RUGBY The new manager of Romania’s rugby team, David Gerard
    (FR), announced the 32 players selected for the national team’s debut match in
    the 2024 Rugby Europe Championship. According to the website of the Romanian
    Rugby Federation, only 26 of them will travel to Poland. In Rugby Europe
    Championship, Romania plays in Group B, alongside Portugal, Belgium and Poland.
    The first match, in Poland on February 4, will be followed by 2 home games,
    against Belgium (February 10) and Portugal (February 17). (AMP)

  • Report on European funds fraud

    Report on European funds fraud

    The European Anti-Fraud Office known as OLAF announced that in 2017 alone it conducted 197 investigations, which resulted in 309 recommendations and the recuperation of 3 billion Euros that retuned to the EU budget. A common element of the finalized investigations was the existence of a secret understanding between the winner of a tender and either a consultant or the very beneficiary of the funds.



    The conflict of interests was another common element of the investigations, involving politicians and large-scale public procurement projects. According to the European media, three countries in the east of the EU, Romania, Hungary and Poland were allegedly the countries with the most intense anti-fraud investigations. According to the acting Director General of OLAF, British Nicholas Ilet, there is no link between the number of investigations and the level of corruption in a certain country. He says that if there is a substantial investigation, it means that there is a good cooperation between OLAF representatives and a certain country or that OLAF benefits from much information about that country.



    There are 11 investigations targeting the use of European funds in Romania which is the leader in a classification of countries with anti-fraud investigations finalized in 2017. Illustrative of the situation are two investigations related to projects funded through the European fund for regional development. The representatives of a city hall, which was the beneficiary, made an understanding with the representatives of the company that had drafted the technical projects for the building of a road, according to which they established restrictive criteria in the documents to be used at the tender.



    In this way, they created an advantage for a certain company that won the tender, with the rest of the participants in the tender being rejected from the very start of the initial assessment stage. The sides involved forged a lot of documents including the technical project of the road, the OLAF representatives concluded. They calculated the financial loss from the EU budget as standing at 21 million Euros. OLAF recommended the Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policies of the European Commission to recuperate the entire amount of money and forwarded judicial recommendations to the National Anti-Corruption Directorate in Bucharest to take legal action against the aforementioned entities.



    In November 2017 the prosecutors of the National Anti-Corruption Directorate indicted several high-ranking politicians for fraud in EU-funded projects, the setting up of a criminal group and abuse of office for personal gains. In order to recuperate the loss, they confiscated the assets and blocked the bank accounts of the people involved in the fraud. In a different, trans-national case, the European Anti-Fraud Office managed to stop an intricate fraud scheme through which community funds worth more than 1.4 million Euros were embezzled. The money was to be used for building emergency response hovercraft prototypes. The investigation revealed irregularities in a research and innovation project that had been won by an Italian-led European consortium with partners from France, Romania and Great Britain.