REPORTS CONCERNING ILLEGAL LOGGING, SENT TO THE GENERAL PROSECUTORS' OFFICE Schweighofer, caught offside by the Ministry of the Environment

The Ministry of the Environment, Waters and Forests (MMAP) has sent the General Prosecutors' Office a number of reports after the audits it conducted at forestry operators, which resulted in the uncovering of many irregularities, including at Austrian company Holzindustrie Schweighofer.

According to a press release of the, the investigations began after the media published several articles which presented possible irregularities in the forestry sector.

Thus, between May 7th - June 12th, minister Graţiela Gavrilescu began a comprehensive audit at the plants of Holzindustrie Schweighofer of Sebeş and Rădăuţi, as well as at the headquarters of the main suppliers of timber of the Austrian company.

The press release of the MMAP states: "The goal of the audits was to check the legality of the origin, transport, storage, primary processing and trading of wood, including the import thereof".

Officials of the Ministry of the Environment claim that, after the audit of the stated physical inventories and of the accounting records, they have uncovered a number of irregularities, such as suspicions on the existence of several economic operators that have supplied wood obtained through illegal logging, discrepancies between the reception and the logging of wood inventory, the existence of wood materials received with paperwork that did not clearly state its origin, discrepancies between the volumes of wood recorded in the waybills and the volumes of wood received or the reporting to the Wood Mass Tracking System (Sistemul de Urmărire a Masei Lemnoase - SUMAL) of fictitious waybills, by various companies. The MMAP also said that it can not provide details included in the audit reports, until the completion of the investigation.

We remind that Holzindustrie Schweighofer has been accused countless times of irregularities concerning its activity in Romania, with its main "enemy" being the non-governmental organization Neuer Weg. The biggest producer of coniferous trees in Romania has been accused in April of accepting to buy illegally logged wood from Romania and of having caused a loss of 130 million Euros to the Romanian state and to timber suppliers, according to Neuer Weg. The officials of the Austrian company could no longer endure the repeated accusations and decided to sue the NGO, for libel and publishing untrue information, and the lawsuit will be tried by the Court of Vienna.

According to a press release of the presidential administration, yesterday, the National Supreme Defense Council held a meeting, led by president Klaus Iohannis, which, among other things, led to reviewing the risks and vulnerabilities of forest patrimony, caused by illegal stripping, which have a major impact on the business climate and implicitly, generate losses to the consolidated state budget.