FOLLOWING AN ARTICLE PUBLISHED BY "BURSA" The Ministry of Agriculture is investigating the siphoning of funds intended for compensating the damages caused by floods

• The investigative body of minister Mihail Dumitru will begin the investigations of the National Land Improvement Agency (ANIF) and its branches, after the Administration awarded without auction, contracts worth 1.5 million Euros for repairing the damages caused by the floods

• The investigation was demanded by the minister following the article in the BURSA newspaper concerning the controversial contracts signed by the ANIF

The Minister of Agriculture, Mihail Dumitru, has decided to begin an investigation at the National Land Improvement Agency (ANIF) and its branches, after BURSA published an exclusive article describing how, after the floods that happened this spring, the branches of the ANIF awarded repair contracts worth 1.5 million Euros without call for tenders, even as the companies in question lacked the equipment needed to perform the works specified in the contracts.

The officials of the Ministry of Agriculture stated the following for BURSA: "The minister has decided to launch an investigation both at the headquarters of the ANIF, as well as at its branches. For this purpose was appointed the Investigation Commission (part of the Investigative Body of the minister). The investigation will concern itself mostly with the procurement - in particular the ones presented in the article published in your newspaper. Once the probe will be completed, the investigative commission will present the findings and conclusions to the minister".

In the article "Even as the parliamentary investigation is under way, irregularities continue", published in BURSA, in April, the National Land Improvement Company (SNIF) complained that several private companies had negotiated and secured very lucrative contracts with the agencies of the ANIF (which have no legal personhood, so they can not take out loans), and then used the Administration itself as a subcontractor, because they did not have the means to perform the works.

At the time, the general manager of the SNIF, Viorel Eugen, said that his company would forward a memo to the Presidency, the Government and the Parliament to complain about these aspects, including the excessive prices obtained by some of the companies for the works performed: "For instance, some private companies negotiated with the ANIF, to receive a price of 9.7 lei/per square meter of excavation, while we were told to perform the same job for 5.4 lei, or even 4.7 lei in some cases".

Due to debts to the public budget, the SNIF can not participate in these calls for tenders, and the company"s management will urge for a solution to this issue.

Sources close to the ANIF also claim that the quality of the works performed by some of the companies that were awarded the contracts is dubious at best: in a town in the county of Banat, our sources say that even though some of the contractors have unclogged the sewers, they did not perform any of the works required to protect the towns, leaving them vulnerable to floods.

After the previous article was published, our readers informed us that in February, in the county of Bistriţa Năsăud, some companies have performed sowing on the dykes and canals at a time when the snow was 30 cm thick. Which experts say amounts to no less than simply putting money in the ground.

Our readers have notified us that some of the companies that performed these works was exorbitant: 11.6 lei/ cubic meter of mechanical excavation and 62.5 lei per cubic meter of manual excavation.

The position of Valentin Apostol, the head of the specific department of the Ministry of Agriculture, which was mentioned in the previous article, was interesting to say the least: " (...) I am not saying that these works weren"t performed, but do you think anyone would have been willing to dig out one shovelful of soil at 20 degrees below zero, in January?".

The contracts worth 1.5 million Euros were awarded by the branches of the ANIF even as the parliamentary investigation of the land improvement activities was under way.

The members of the Parliamentary Commission were investigating at the time a similar situation, in which in the summer of 2008, the ANIF had awarded, without a prior call for tenders, contracts worth 1 million Euros for the repair of the irrigation infrastructure to companies that were missing the equipment needed for such a task, and thus took on the SNIF itself as a subcontractor.

This issue was mentioned in the report of the investigative commission which was forwarded to the control institutions of the state in order to pursue legal action. The head of the investigative parliamentary commission, Valeriu Tabără, was shocked that the new contracts were signed just as the probe was under way.

• The Court of Auditors has informed the Chamber of Deputies that it has decided to investigate the ANIF and the SNIF, in the case of irrigation systems

The chairman of the Court of Auditors, Nicolae Văcăroiu has informed the Chamber of Deputies that it has put the National Administration for Land Improvement (ANIF), The National Land Improvement Company (SNIF) and its agencies on the list of institutions that will be audited following the complaint filed in the case of the irrigation systems.

According to the letter sent on May 7th to the Court of Auditors, the ANIF and the SNIF would be investigated starting with January 11th 2010, in order to audit "the use and management of the irrigation systems and of their maintenance and repairs infrastructure which were public property". The results of the audit will be published in the activity report of the Court of Auditors for the year 2010.

On the other hand, the chief prosecutor of the National Anticorruption Department (DNA), Daniel Morar, wrote to the Chamber of Deputies, stating that the report of the commission concerning the investigation of the irrigation systems case does not include any findings sthat would fall under the jurisdiction of the National Anticorruption Department. On May 3rd, the chairman of the Chamber of Deputies, Roberta Anastase, has announced that it has received a letter from the Public Prosecutor claiming that the report of the Commission which was investigating the irrigation systems was sent to the National Anticorruption Commission for trial. After the notification received by the Public Prosecutor, the National Anticorruption Department notified the Chamber of Deputies that, after its review of the report of the Commission which investigated the irrigation systems case, none of the findings in the report would warrant any action from the National Anticorruption Department, according to Rompres.

On April 13, the deputies passed a draft bill on the report of the Commission which concerned the case of the irrigation systems, by which it notified the Prosecutor"s Office attached to the High Court of Cassation and Justice of specific findings. As a result, the deputies found that the contract concerning the RomAg 98 program contained several irregularities and that the provisions of the contract concluded with American company TransChem Finance were not honored. The Chamber of Deputies has requested that the Court of Auditors, the Ministry of Public Finance, the National Anticorruption Department, the General Inspectorate of the Romanian Police, the Ministry of Agriculture and the Government to review the conclusions and the proposals of the Commission and to take the appropriate measures, according to their attributions and notified the Prosecutor"s Office of the High Court in order to have it continue the investigation and to take the appropriate legal required by the findings of the report.