Dragnea Returns To His Turf

• Upset with having received too little money for investments, Liviu Dragnea resigned from the office of Minister of Administration and Interior and is planning to go back "home," to the Chairmanship of the Teleorman County Council

• At the Ministry, Dragnea would have had only 430 million RON as an investment budget, whereas in Teleorman, he awarded 140 million RON worth of investment contracts to one company, Tel Drum.

• Tel Drum has won every road modernization contract given by the Teleorman County Council and is directly and indirectly connected to Liviu Dragnea and Adrian Simionescu, the current Vice Chairman of the Teleorman County Council

• The company that wins contracts of tens of millions of euros from the Teleorman County Council can change owners at any time, being a bearer share company

Liviu Dragnea has good reason to be upset: only 430 million RON from the nearly 10 billion RON allocated to the Ministry of Administration and Interior as budget for 2009 will be used for investments. Too little for Liviu Dragnea. In order to be a minister, he was supposed to give up the Chairmanship of the Teleorman County Council. But he is the "king" of Teleorman County. In Teleorman County, the streets are full of money...

In order to understand the magnitude of Liviu Dragnea"s grievance, we need to keep in mind that the Teleorman County Council allocated 140 million RON to one single company, Tel Drum S.A., to perform road modernization works. That would be one third of his investment budget as minister. The kind of money he could award to one company in Teleorman County.

Privatized by Liviu Dragnea himself in 2001, Tel Drum was controlled by the County Council until 2001 and then sold to Marian Fiscuci, whom the press described as Liviu Dragnea"s driver. Even if he never was Dragnea"s driver, Marian Fiscuci is not far from the former minister"s interests. Fiscuci appears to be in direct business relations with Liviu Dragnea"s associates or directors, including the current Vice Chairman of the Teleorman County Council, Adrian Simionescu.

What a great family in Teleorman! And a matching budget: tens of millions of euros. Tel Drum S.A. is a bearer share company, which means that shareholders can change at any time. Officially speaking, the shareholders are: Sorin Gheorghias, Lucian Dobrescu, Marian Fiscuci, Mirela Costache, Marilena Panaitov and Florea Neda. Unofficially speaking, the stock certificates might as well be in Liviu Dragnea"s pocket... Or in one of the two hotels he owns in Turnu Magurele, both of which used to belong to the State.

Last month, Liviu Dragnea"s wife, Bombonica Dragnea, removed Turris Hotel from the assets of the company by the same name controlled by the Dragnea family with over 90%

Why should Dragnea have wanted to remain a minister?