As a result of the findings of the control corps of the
ministry many demotions occurred at transport companies

    Miron Mitrea, the minister of Public Works, Transportation and Habitat made public at the beginning of February the conclusion of the control corps. The reviews on transport companies that fall under MLPTL jurisdiction revealed many irregularities. The minister mentioned that he will not make a witch hunt out of these check-ups but instead he only wishes to find out “whether, where and why the money disappeared” because his predecessors - Traian Basescu and Anca Boagiu stated that “theft is afoot.” That is why Miron Mitrea was adamant in mentioning that the reports of the control group were made on request by employees, unions and other individuals in the system. The control group of the ministry reviewed Metrorex, Romatsa, SAAF, SNTFM, CFR Marfa SA, TAROM and the Romanian Auto registry. The following on the list are the other railway companies and the International Airport Bucharest - Otopeni. At Metrorex, under the direct supervision of Traian Panait, the head of the control group, Gheorghe Udriste was dismissed from his position. Mr. Tiberiu Muresan took his place. This dismissal was the result of the untidiness related to traffic safety, inefficiency of the security services - especially regarding the presence of the junkies in the subway stations - as well as to certain agreements concluded with several companies that instead of bringing profits to Metrorex, they cause the latter to loose important amounts of money. One of these agreements is that signed with Sindomet company regarding the commissioning of the commercial areas. In this case, the police and the Ministry of Finances are involved in order to solve out the respective problem.
    Another case in which the service of the competent authorities is the investment agreement concluded with Romasta.
    Mr. Miron Mitrea considers the situation from SAAF as “extremely wearied”; SAAF is a company whose director was dismissed even from the times when Anca Boiagiu used to be Minister of Transportation. Miron Mitrea stated that it was inexplicable the way this company had registered a deficit of ROL 300 billions, after it had cut and valorized more than 400.000 tones of scrap iron. Since Mr. Minister is not willing of making any speculation before a total analyzes of the matter at hand, he hasn’t disclosed any other detail regarding the control reports as well as the solutions that are going to be made in this case.
    As regarding the SNTFM CFR Marfa SA, is still under question mark the way a company with an insignificant bank account succeeded to obtain in exclusivity, the right of negotiating over the insurance in railway transportation.
    About the final verification with the Romanian Auto Register (RAR), Mr. Minister “discovered” that RAR has become a “state within a state”, underlying the fact that RAR does not have to forget that it is serving the interest of people and not the other way around. Although he has never made public the conclusions of the controlling reports, because he hasn’t have the time to study on them, he said that people’s complaints had conducted the investigations in the right direction Mr. Mitrea also refereed to the public works field and the water pumps supplying program for villages, where several untidiness have also been detected. In consequence, the Account Court will be advised to verify the charges made on the base of such program, because of the fact that until now there is no certain situation about the works started and executed through this program.
    For the next period, these reports seem to lead to new dismissals of several officers within the respective companies. Mr. Mitrea demanded to railway transportation companies to reduce the personnel in charge up to 40% of the actual situation: “we intend to accelerate the restructuring in the management area of the companies where there are big salaries and too many personnel.”
    Thus, within the restructuring process of the railway department, the number of officers will be reduced up to 42% of the actual capacity, personnel holding especially the positions of general managers, secondary mangers, chiefs of staff, etc.
    The project has already been approved, meaning that out of 1500 existent managerial positions, 500 will no longer exist.
    As a result of the approval of such project, the prognosis for the railway companies will be as follows: CFR - SA will remain with 204 officers out of a capacity of 418; CFR Marfa will remain with 36 officers out of a capacity of 178; CFR Calatori will remain with 131 officers out of a capacity of 263; SAAF with 9 out of 51; SMF will remain only with 190 officers out of a capacity of 290. Thus the approximate ratio of officers as compared to the general number of the personnel working within railway transportation companies will be of 1%.

Magdalena Bran, reporting