PNL to trigger court action to have City Hall’s municipal companies dissolved

General Councillor Ciprian Ciucu, Florin Citu and Ionel Danca announced on Sunday that the National Liberal Party (PNL) will trigger a court action to dissolve the 22 municipal companies of the Bucharest City Hall, after the Bucharest Court of Appeals decided to cancel the decisions on whose basis they were set up. “The effect? Bucharest has a budget of 1.2 billion euro. Do you realise. You have a budget of 1 billion euro and you give companies 60 million [sic]. Namely 60 percent of the yearly budget goes to these companies. She changed Bucharest’s paradigm with these companies. She came up with companies in fields of activity in which you have very functional markets that can give you far better solutions than these companies can. These companies are illegal, they have no business plan, no headquarters. How does she think the quality of public services will suddenly grow? We, the members of the PNL and of the CGMB [General Council of the Bucharest Municipality], have shown that members of the Boards of Directors are populating these companies. Bucharest’s administration has been effectively forcefully taken over by this clan, I can’t call it otherwise,” General Councillor Ciprian Ciucu stated during a press conference that took place on Sunday at PNL’s headquarters in Modrogan. The Liberal pointed out that they should also collaborate with the USR in order to have these companies dissolved. “We must take this action as far as we can. We must collaborate very well including with the USR. We might win the city halls but not hold the levers through which we could lay the administrative bases. The stake is extremely high. We might end up having mayors without levers, without instruments, who cannot deliver public services of quality,” Ciucu added. In his own turn, PNL Vice President Florin Citu said that Bucharest Mayor Gabriela Firea, even though she wants to pose as a victim, has been protected by Court of Accounts President Mihai Busuioc and by other state institutions. “She (Gabriela Firea – editor’s note) has been protected by Busuioc from the Court of Accounts. Ms Firea, even though she is trying to show us she is the victim in Bucharest, is protected by state institutions. Firea is trying to destroy two private passenger transport companies. Ms Firea is feigning interest in jobs. She is scared that the people she put in office there will no longer support her if these companies disappear,” Citu stated. At the same time, lawyer Cristian Bacanu, Chairman of PNL Bucharest’s Judiciary Committee, has called on general councillors to no longer vote for the transfer of assets to the 22 municipal companies. “We, the members of PNL, summon the general councillors to no longer vote for the transfer of assets to these companies. They are jointly liable for these votes. In our opinion, these companies will be dissolved, because there is a court ruling and any sum that goes to these companies will represent damage,” Bacanu said. The Bucharest Court of Appeals decided last Thursday to cancel all the decisions setting up the Bucharest City Hall’s municipal companies, following a lawsuit that USR Bucharest triggered in 2017, and the decision is final, USR Bucharest President Roxana Wring informed on Thursday. Bucharest Mayor Gabriela Firea stated last Friday that the 22 municipal companies are legal, despite the ruling of the Bucharest Court of Appeals which says that the companies should have been set up with the votes of two thirds of General Council members, not with a simple majority.

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