Anti-corruption Measures in Romania
We must get rid of corruption and of corrupt people, says the President of Romania
Roxana Vasile, 23.01.2015, 13:03
Corruption is a threat to national security, the Romanian President Klaus Iohannis told a television station on Thursday. He promised to support and always encourage those who fight this scourge. The anti-corruption offensive seems unstoppable, but it also brings to light the scope of this problem that has been afflicting the Romanian society for many years. Left and right of centre politicians, whose parliamentary immunity made them think they are above the law, or powerful business people whose wealth gave them the illusion that they can buy anything and anybody, are now called to answer for their acts.
The headquarters of the National Anti-Corruption Directorate in downtown Bucharest has turned into a pilgrimage place. And this week prosecutors initiated proceedings against one of the nine Constitutional Court judges, Toni Grebla, who is accused of aggravated corruption offences. He is probed into for influence peddling and for establishing a crime group that exported farm produce and foodstuffs to Russia, via Turkey, to bypass Moscow’s ban on imports from the EU.
Toni Grebla is also accused of having claimed and received undue benefits from his godson, between 2010 and 2015, in exchange for promising to talk various civil servants into speeding up procedures involving the companies owned by his godson. In turn, a former Liberal minister, Cristian David, is accused of bribe-taking, and the High Court of Cassation and Justice granted the Anti-Corruption Directorate’s request to place him under 30-day arrest pending trial. Allegedly Cristian David received in 2007-2008 as much as 500 thousand euros in exchange for persuading a County Council president, who is also detained in a separate case, to issue an ownership title on a 15-ha tract of land.
Dealings involving land are also at the heart of another case involving 17 defendants, including the former Social Democratic Deputy Viorel Hrebenciuc, his son Andrei, the former Social Democratic Deputy Ioan Adam and the former justice minister Tudor Chiuariu. They put together a crime group that sought the illegal return of 43 thousand hectares of forestland. The State incurred losses of over 300 million euros.
Equally shocking are the mass media reports that the Liberal Democrat Gabriel Sandu stated that throughout his term in office as a minister of communications he contributed substantial amounts to his party in exchange for keeping his seat as a minister and his position in the party’s leading structure. Gabriel Sandu is one of the many former ministers, from left and right-wing parties, and businesspeople investigated for their involvement in a Microsoft license fraud.
