Iasi Mayor Unhappy With Themeli Quality

Doru Mocanu, Iaşi

The Iasi City Hall has asked the State Inspectorate for Construction to verify the quality of the works performed to modernize tramway tracks in the Tatarasi district of the city. "The quality of the work done in Tatarasi is poor and that is why we have asked the State Inspectorate for Construction to verify the foundation of the tramway tracks. The verified and told us that the works performed by the Greek company Themeli were below standard. The representatives of this company in Bucharest are specialized in slogans, so we wrote to the Greek owner of the company to make him intervene," said Mayor Gheorghe Nichita.

In turn, Bruno Gheorghievici, the CEO of Themeli, appeared surprised by such remarks and stressed that the mayor"s words did not reflect the situation in the field. According to Gheorghievici, the construction site is in a preliminary phase of correct topographical positioning. He stressed that the coordinates provided by the designer were wrong by at least 15 centimetres.

The works in Tatarasi are intended to rehabilitate 4.14 kilometres of tramway tracks. The contract was awarded to the Greek-based contractor Themeli for 16 million RON. The project should have been finished in April 2009, according to the contract, but intermittent payments and bad weather caused some delay. Until recently, the Municipality appeared pleased with the services of the Greek contractor, but Themeli"s wish to change the solution stipulated in the contract because "it is no longer modern" has upset City Hall officials, who started to notice problems.