Reactions to Fenechiu Case
From regrets to excuses …These are some of the diverse reactions triggered by the prison sentence passed on the former Romanian transportation minister Relu Fenechiu.
Roxana Vasile, 15.07.2013, 13:38
“Only fools aren’t afraid in situations like these” — the former Romanian Transport minister, Liberal Relu Fenechiu said when asked whether he was afraid following the sentence he received in the ‘Transformer’ file in which he was indicted. His fears proved to be justified. The court has sentenced him to five years in prison, payment of damages and some rights removed for the coming three years for conspiracy to commit abuse of office.
The former minister was accused that through the companies he owned, he sold transformers made in the 1970s and 1980s as new products to a state-owned company providing electricity maintenance and services with the complicity of the leadership of the respective company. Minister Fenechiu has thus set a sad record being the first Romanian minister indicted while he was still in office. The sentence is not irrevocable and his colleagues from the National Liberal Party have tried to defend him saying: ‘he used to be a good minister, who should have the benefit of the doubt, until a verdict is read.’
Even so, Fenechiu decided to step down from the Transport Ministry, and before another nomination is made, this interim job has been taken over by Prime Minister Victor Ponta. The sentence against the former transport minister brings to an end a six-month mandate, conditioned on two strategic objectives: the privatization of the Freight division of the Romanian Railway Company and the release of European funds for transport infrastructure.
The designation of a winning bidder in the privatization of the Freight Division of the Romanian Railway Company was a prerequisite in the evaluation of the IMF agreement, while the disbursement of funds was an indispensable measure in the context of the present austerity budget. Both these measures were met in late June, but not without emotions; the privatization of the Romanian Railway Company’s Freight Division nearly failed mainly because of the diminished investors’ interest and the contested privatization procedures.
This is the reason for which opposition MEP Theodor Stolojan on Sunday said that the interim transport minister Victor Ponta should clarify for the public opinion the process of privatizing the aforementioned freight company and also why private management cannot function in the companies under the ownership and administration of the Transport minister. “ Mr. Ponta has to explain why party interest of the ruling Social-Liberal Union cannot let the private management to be functional in such companies, and why in Romania any market economy method cannot work when it is promoted by the government in the right way”.
MEP Stolojan has voiced concern regarding the Prime Minister’s stand in the Fenechiu case and his liberal or coalition colleagues, who are trying to prove Fenechiu’s competence, when actually the things that happened under his coordination raised many question marks for foreign investors.
