Steel Industry Privatization Contracts Land On Graft Investigators" Table

Cătălin Deacu

Outraged with the Government"s refusal to declassify the privatization contracts in the steel industry, representatives of the Metarom Federation of the Steel Workers Unions intend to file a criminal complaint with the National Anti-Graft Directorate (DNA) against those responsible for the privatization contracts in the steel industry.

"We will file a criminal complaint with the DNA against those who are responsible for the privatization contracts in our industry. For the time being, our lawyers are working on it. It is the only solution we have left, after we have taken countless steps trying to have the privatization contracts declassified, but the Government is refusing to do it. Maybe we will succeed this way," FSS Metarom President Nicolae Scantei told BURSA.

The union leader did not specify whom the Federation was going to file a criminal complaint against. However, FSS Metarom Secretary General Nicolae Coman told BURSA that the Federation wanted "the indictment of all those who are responsible" for high treason. "We want the investments stipulated in the privatization contracts to be compared with the actual investments in the field," Coman said, commenting that many investments had materialized in cars and offices, and not in anything related to the employees" comfort.

Following the recent rallies in Bucharest and other industrial centres, the unions are demanding the declassification of the privatization contracts in the steel industry, but, according to the unions, the Government will not even consider it, because it would embarrass one of the ruling parties, PSD, who was in power in 2000-2004, when many privatization contracts concerning the steel industry were signed.

Moreover, the unions are saying that PSD joined forces with the Liberals to prevent the appointment of a parliamentary inquiry panel to investigate the content of such privatization contracts. "PSD is hiding behind the privatization contracts signed in 2002-2003. It was only because of them that the Parliament did not appoint an inquiry panel," Coman added.

At the end of June, the Chamber of Deputies denied the Democrat-Liberal Party"s (PD-L) motion to appoint an inquiry panel to look into the privatization of Romania"s largest steel mill, Sidex Galat. The Social Democrat Party (PSD) and the National Liberal Party (PNL) voted against the motion and caused its denial.

The unions claim that the privatization contracts concerning the steel industry were detrimental to the State and their consequences are becoming increasingly evident now, in crisis time: employees are being fired, production capacities are being closed, debts are becoming unbearable, while poverty and social exclusion are turning rampant.

According to the unions, these are just some of the joint consequences of the economic crisis and the privatization contracts signed to the loss of the State without "any governmental authorities having taken any steps to force the investors to implement their contractual commitments."

The union leaders told BURSA that, so far, the Government has disregarded all of the issues brought up by FSS Metarom in view of "rescuing the steel industry from extinction" and revitalizing a traditional branch of the national industry. The unions promised to resume protests, most likely in September (or even in August) to warn authorities one again about the forthcoming bankruptcy of the Romanian steel industry.