The General Mayor of the Capital - large arrears in PNL requests

Nicuşor Dan, the general mayor of the capital, registers large arrears, according to a document published by G4Media, regarding the fulfillment of the objectives set by the PNL in February 2023, objectives through the prism of which the liberals will decide whether they will support the draft resolutions with regarding different types of investments, as well as whether they will offer him support for a new mandate at the head of the municipality of Bucharest.

The document, submitted almost a month ago - July 31 - to the president of PNL Bucharest, Hubert Thuma (who is also the president of the Ilfov County Council) and the Executive Office of the respective political formation, shows that in the 10 fields of activity, identified by the liberals as the emergencies of Bucharest and assumed in 2020, in the elections, Nicuşor Dan registers worrying delays.

We note that the report drawn up by the general mayor of the Capital has not yet been debated by the leaders of PNL Bucharest, who have not met to make a decision.

Regarding heating, although the liberals requested that at least 2 sections be in execution and 5 lots be in design, the general mayor shows that his priority is the rehabilitation of the main heating network.

"The main problem of the district heating system in the last 30 years has been underfunding.(...)The losses from the main network are extremely high, therefore the main concern of the municipality must be the rehabilitation of the main network", says Nicuşor Dan, who mentions that there is ongoing projects, but which are not fully funded - as the liberals demanded - but only partially.

The mayor mentions that for 7 objectives totaling 63.24 kilometers of pipeline, there is partial funding, i.e. only for 4 objectives, from the Ministry of Development, Public Works and Administration. The general mayor also shows that 25 objectives totaling 212 kilometers of pipeline have partial financing from European funds.

• 23% - the percentage of works carried out on the Ghencea Extension

The municipality also registers losses when increasing the pace of execution of large investment projects in the road infrastructure. Thus, if the PNL asks the general mayor of the capital to open traffic on the Doamna Ghica road crossing by July 31, the work is not yet completed, and the deadline was extended by Nicuşor Dan for the month of September. The situation regarding the completion of 50% of the works on section 1 of the Ghencea Extension is also presented, where at this moment only 23% of the works have been carried out.

"The city has a big deficit in transport infrastructure, generated by underfunding. Repairing the actual situation cannot be done with episodic interventions, as before, but with an integrated vision, in several directions: rehabilitation of 50 kilometers of tram line, expansion of the tram network, radial roads, integrated traffic light system, the ring median, the metropolitan train, the treatment plant from Glina", claims Nicuşor Dan.

Despite what the mayor stated above, urban mobility leaves much to be desired, one of the minuses being underfunding, a cause that Mayor Nicuşor Dan blames on the majority of the failure to achieve the objectives imposed by PNL Bucharest.

"The main problem of public transport in the last 30 years has been underfunding", says Nicuşor Dan, who claims, however, that in 2023 more travelers were registered with STB's public transport means.

"We have unlocked the contract for the supply of 100 trams with a length of 36 meters. (...) For the update of the Sustainable Urban Mobilization Plan for the Bucharest - Ilfov Region, we are in the phase of evaluating the offers. In March 2023, we signed the contract for the development of a master plan for the development of the bicycle path network at the level of the Municipality of Bucharest, which will allow us to make investments in alternative urban transport with European money. The deadline for the realization of the master plan is 12 months", the general mayor of the Capital conveyed to the liberals.

• Park modernization - blocked by lack of funding

Another delay regarding the city administration by the team led by the general mayor Nicuşor Dan is regarding the revitalization of parks and the removal of dangers from the urban environment. With regard to these aspects, the general mayor blames the former team that led the municipality of Bucharest until the fall of 2020.

"The mistake of the former administration, as in many other cases, was the transfer of the park care activity to three municipal companies, under contractual conditions impossible to sustain financially. The current administration was forced to close the municipal companies", declares Nicuşor Dan.

Among the backlogs of the current team that administers the municipality of Bucharest is the completion of the started consolidation works and the start of other consolidations in buildings with seismic risk. Although Nicuşor Dan states that the Municipality has obtained funding of over 615 million lei from the PNRR and from funds from the state budget for the consolidation of 32 buildings, the execution works have not yet been started. Only 44 of the buildings with high seismic risk in the Capital are in various stages of design and execution, their financing coming from the local budget.

The development and adoption of a new General Urban Plan represents another minus for the administrative team led by Nicuşor Dan. The municipality has barely managed to unlock the contract for the realization of the PUG, which poses great problems for the investment projects carried out by the sector municipalities and companies with real estate projects.

Regarding the digitization and efficiency of public services, the mayor mentions that a 29 million lei funding was obtained from PNRR for the creation of a digital platform that would centralize all relevant information from the perspective of mobility, public services and urban planning, and that only 7 of the 19 hospitals under the administration of the General City Hall carry out online appointments for outpatient medical consultations.

• Network map - not completed

One chapter where it can be said that Nicuşor Dan fulfilled the PNL requirement is the reform of the General City Hall, by abolishing the 15 municipal companies (some of the companies are still in various phases of the closure procedure), which led to a decrease of 4162 persons of the number of employees of the Municipality.

Regarding decision-making and institutional transparency, Nicuşor Dan states:

"All drafts of normative administrative acts are subject to public debate, all requested public debate sessions are organized. The meetings of the General Council and the committees of the General Council are broadcast live on the Facebook page of the institution. The presence and the right to speak in the meetings of the General Council was allowed to any person who requested it. The draft budget was also published in Excel format, responding to an old request of NGOs".

As for the PNL requirement regarding the creation of a multi-year investment planning system that integrates all network operators in Bucharest (Termoenergetica, STB, Apa Nova, Distrigaz, Enel, NetCity, etc.), Mayor General Nicuşor Dan claims that the legislation in force provides that the operators are obliged to send the local authorities an up-to-date map with the local public networks and that the organization of such a map for the municipality of Bucharest only started this year.

From the above, it can be said that Mayor Nicuşor Dan is far from receiving a passing grade from the PNL in order to continue to benefit from the political support of the liberals, if the failure to fulfill most of the objectives set out seven months ago will be taken into account . In this case, the PNL should nominate another candidate for the position of general mayor of the Capital for the local elections of 2024, as there are several options among the liberal leaders in Bucharest. However, the option chosen must be one that defeats both the PSD candidate and the one from a right-wing alliance that could be formed by USR, Forţa Dreptei and PMP around Nicuşor Dan.