JOURNALISTS WITHOUT MORAL BOUNDARIES Rise Project «revealed» the revelations that BURSA published eight years ago, without mentioning us once - 11.07.2017

The news that PSD president Liviu Dragnea is the shareholder of Tel Drum S.A., which does road infrastructure works and which was awarded all the contracts of the County Council of Teleorman in 2007-2008, which was led by Dragnea, is the main news that the investigative journalists of Rise Project tried to cause a stir with these last few days, but they did not have the minimum decency to mention that their "investigation" consisted only of adding a few elements to the article "Dragnea returns to his county moşia", published in BURSA on February 4th, 2009.

Bringing life to news published eight years ago is indeed a piece of art that is their own, but it is good for the public to know that the investigation that the journalists undertook did not involve them making any efforts, taking photos while hiding in bushes, they weren't chased off by armed bodyguards, they just clicked around on the BURSA website, without even hurting a finger.

But the "investigators" of Rise Project do not mention BURSA at all.

Readers may just assume a coincidence, "Man, the world doesn't revolve around BURSA, you may have published this eight years ago, they just found out about these things, independently - it is just a coincidence, it has nothing to do with your article!"

No, it isn't a coincidence, and the boys of Rise Project know very well that it isn't and they know very well they copy/pasted the story from BURSA (I can hardly wait for them to try and deny it!).

We are reprinting the article which is the basis of the so-called "revelations" of Rise Project published now, with the mention that back then, in 2009, we have clarified that being a company with bearer shares, Tel Drum S.A. could change its owners at any time; in order for it to relaunch the story, Rise Project should have at least update the ownership status for that company, but it didn't.

For that, the "investigators" would have been forced to make the effort of getting out of their chairs.

Article published in "BURSA" of February 04, 2009

• Dragnea returns to his county fief

- Annoyed that he received too little money for investments, Liviu Dragnea resigned from the Ministry of Administration and Internal Affairs and wants to go back home, to be the head of the Teleorman County Council

- In the Ministry, Dragnea would have only had 430 million lei for investments, as in Teleorman he awarded contracts amounting to 140 million lei to one company - "Tel Drum"

- "Tel Drum" which won all the contracts for the modernization of the roads from the Teleorman County Council is tied directly and indirectly to Liviu Dragnea and the current vice-president of the aforementioned Council, Adrian Simionescu

- The company that wins contracts amounting to tens of millions of Euros from the County Council of Teleorman can change its owners at any time, as it is a company that has "bearer shares"

Liviu Dragnea has reasons to be upset: just 430 million lei out of 10 billion RON, which is what the budget of the Ministry of Administration and Internal Affairs will be this year, will be money allocated for investments. That's not enough for him.

In order to be a minister, Liviu Dragnea had to give up the presidency of the Teleorman County Council. Or, over there, Liviu Dragnea is "king".

In Teleorman, the roads are paved with money...

In order to understand the scale of the discontent of Liviu Dragnea we need to just look at the fact that to just one company, the County Council of Teleorman has allocated 140 million lei for road modernization works to Tel Drum SA.

In other words one third of the money he had available for investments at the ministry, Liviu Dragnea had for one company in Teleorman.

Privatized by Liviu Dragnea himself in 2001, Tel Drum was controlled by the County Council until 2001, and then was sold in its entirety to Marian Fişcuci, who, according to the press was actually Liviu Dragnea's driver. Even it that weren't the case, Marian Fişcuci had close ties to the former minister. Fişcuci seems to have direct business relations with the associates or administrators of Liviu Dragnea, including with the current vice-president of the County Court of Teleorman, Adrian Simionescu.

A big family in Teleorman! And lots of money to go with it - tens of millions of Euros.

Tel Drum SA is nowadays a company with "bearer shares", meaning its ownership can change at any time.

Officially, its shareholders are: Sorin Gheorghiaş, Lucian Dobrescu, Marian Fişcuci, Mirela Costache, Marilena Panaitov and Florea Neda.

Unofficially, the shares can sit at Dragnea's home just as well at Liviu Dragnea home himself...

Or in his two hotels in Turnu Măgurele, both of which used to belong to the state previously.

Just last month, Bombonica Dragnea, the former minister's wife, took the Turris hotel "home", removing it from the social capital of the company with the same name, of which the Dragnea family holds over 90%.

What reason would Dragnea have had to remain a minister?