The Minister of Education, Mihai Damian, declared on Tuesday, during a conference held in Iasi, that the results of the investigations will show whether there were irregularities in the purchase of school minibuses with funds from the National Resilience and Recovery Program (PNRR).
“The results of our analysis were given to the Ministry of European Investments and Projects. They also made the checks they considered within the ministry, the UATs, and went ahead with the documents. I understand that it is a process under analysis. That is, it is not a final decision that irregularities were made, discovered or not, but that they were sent for analysis to see if these irregularities exist or not.” Minister Mihai Damian declared, writes Agerpres.
The Minister of Education stated that projects worth 850 million lei are being implemented in Suceava county, and that from the information he has, the minibuses represent investments of approximately 20 – 30 million lei.
“I understand that these buses represent 20 – 30 million lei. I mean, we are talking about less than 5% of the investments. If there are suspicions about 5%, of course they must be analyzed. But I would not like us not to notice that 95% are not under suspicion at the moment. There are 5% under a certain suspicion and they are analyzed either at the national or European level. Who made the mistake of paying. But I would like to wait the results of these investigations before accusing people of making certain errors, we will see. The important thing is that we have improved the lives of those students. As far as I know, those auctions will be discovered.”stated the Minister of Education.
The statements were made in the context in which the Minister of Investments and European Projects, Dragoş Pâslaru, announced, on Monday evening, on his social media page, that the European Public Prosecutor’s Office followed up on the notification made by him and will investigate the purchases of electric school minibuses financed by PNRR.
The investigations were started after the publication ReporterIS.ro reported that a company from Prahova won, through an auction made through SEAP, more than half of the contracts for the purchase of electric school minibuses at the national level. After winning the auction, the minibuses would have been sold in several counties, but at different prices.
The Iaşi County Council bought 26 16+1 electric minibuses from the company in Prahova, at higher prices than in other counties. The means of transport were intended for students from isolated localities.
The total value of the contract is over 31 million lei, and in Iasi the price of a minibus was 202,800 euros, without VAT.
At that time, the president of the Iasi County Council, Costel Alexe, declared to the press that the purchases were made transparently, respecting all the legal regulations in force, “exactly respecting the guide made and written by the Ministry of Education and other Government entities”.
