Former PM Victor Ponta testified in a case of European funds embezzlement

Former Prime Minister Victor Ponta has left the headquarters of the Ploiesti Office of the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) where he went to testify in a case of European funds embezzlement that involves his brother-in-law Iulian Hertanu, and MPs Sebastian Ghita and Vlad Cosma. Ponta stayed there for one hour. Upon leaving the building, he said he was summoned as a witness and he answered to the prosecution's questions. According to judicial sources, Ponta was summoned to be heard by prosecutors with respect to a project on EU funds conducted at Comarnic, Prahova county and also regarding the financing of his presidential election campaign carried out in the Republic of Moldova. According to the court file, MP Sebastian Ghita allegedly coordinated voter corruption in Moldova to rig the election in favour of Victor Ponta in the 2014 presidential election in Romania. "In the same criminal vein, Ghita Sebastian Aurelian conceived, initiated and coordinated voter corruption in Moldova at the presidential election of 2014 in order to rig the election in favour of candidate Ponta Victor Viorel. The amount paid by the defendant to unduly influence electoral options was 350,000 euros,'' the file shows. Investigation in Hertanu file began in this February, when the DNA Ploiesti prosecutors decided to launch a criminal case against the brother-in-law of then-prime minister as well as against several other persons, among whom MPs Sebastian Ghita and Vlad Cosma, Prahova County Council Chairman Mircea Cosma and staff of SC Hidro Prahova, the company by which the EU funded project being inquired into is being conducted. The anti-corruption body said that over 2011 - 2015 Hertanu, as an administrator of SC Grossman Engineering Group SRL and an employee of CVR Asfalt Construct Group SRL, Vladimir Ciorba - an administrator/ associate at CVR Asfalt Construct Group SRL and CVR Activities Group SRL based in Bucharest and at SC Gefam Pro SRL and Mihail Coman - an administrator/ associate at SC Indserv SRL Ploiesti and SC Indserv Proiect SRL Ploiesti and an employee of SC Hidro Prahova SA (as an advisor to the managing director) set up a criminal group to act with a view to fraudulently gaining a works contract mainly funded by EU funds and to illegally getting important amounts of money, by changing the destination of the funds obtained as part of the EU-funded project in violation of the legal provisions. Furthermore, they allegedly sought to avoid paying the contributions owed to the state by highlighting false spending or fictitious operations in the documents of the companies they controlled. The investigators show that the organised crime group members embezzled from the sewerage project, and appropriated in their own benefit, the total amount of 7,797,410 lei (money collected in cash from accounts of natural and legal entities, representing approximately 54 percent of the total amounts identified as having been paid by SC Grossman Engineering Group SRL to "the partners" who have allegedly subcontracted works); the circumvention from paying to the state, through evasion practices, the amount of 2,515,293 lei. The contract on the extension of the sewerage network in the town of Comarnic was assigned by SC Hidro Prahova SA Ploiesti (a fully state-owned company, in which Prahova County Council is a majority shareholder) to the association of companies SC Grossman Engineering Group SRL - SC Euro Construct Trading 98 SRL, with the contract having been signed in Jan. 2012. Comarnic works are part of a broader project financed by the European Union, amounting to roughly 200 million euros.