National Press Review, February 14

The Gândul wanted to find out what happens with the super-fortunes of customs officials and obtained an authorized opinion from the Attorney General of Romania, and I quote: ‘If he bought the villa in his grandmother’s name, then there’s nothing we could do. The Constitution needs to be amended’ – end of quote.

And the newspaper explaines: ‘Over one hundred customs officials and border police officers have been arrested in the case of customs corruption.
The accussation: bribery. The did is punished more or less harshly by the penal code, but judicial practice shows that judges usually give sentences with few years of jail, often with suspension.

‘It is very difficult for prosecutor when the defendants bought houses or other property on behalf of other people, family members or acquaintances.’

‘They have to prove that the money these goods were purchased with come from commiting illicit acts.’

‘The current law obliges prosecutors to demonstrate this because there is the presumption of illicit obtaining of property, provided by the Constitution.’

‘In the UK, for instance, this is completely opposite, the burden of proving lying with the p-erosn who is under investigation; he is the one who needs to prove he had clean money to purchase a good.’

President Traian Băsescu also taks about the customs corruption situation in an exclusive interview for the România Libera.

The leaders of trade unions for police officers and customs officials know more than what they state about the scandal and those in detention could prove ‘the queen in among the trade union leaders’.

However, the President argues, based on the information obtained from the secret services, that in ‘the six months of surveillance no money transfer transaction on behalf of politicians was discovered, but the investigation may reserve some surprises’.

‘Nevertheless, the President assures us he cannot eliminate politicians from the game, as the process of appointing chiefs is made with the influence of politicians’
In turn, the Evenimentul Zilei writs that the trade union leader, Vasile Marica, is mentioned in the file ‘Customs corruption’, in a case of taking bribe to obtain a job.

Marica claims, however, that this information is false.

The same newspaper reveals other aspects uncovered by prosecutors in their activity at border points, namely: the amounts collected for each inspection were divided equally, usually at the end of the shift, between the shift supervisor in customs and the one in border police.

Of the casual conversations gathered in the file, it is also revealed that huge amounts of money were obtained from this criminal activity, raising up to tens and even thousands of euros on each shift.

The Jurnalul National makes disclosures about how one of the richest men in Romania, Ioan Niculae, who entered the Forbes top of the richest men in the world, gathered his fortune, namely with the help of the hundreds million euros provided by the state through the access of plants fertilizers factories to cheap gas.

According to the newspaper, Niculae is also involved in business with cigarettes, together with an Italian businessman, a so-called Celestini.

He revealed that the current interim head of Customs, Viorel Comăniţă, appointed after the dismissal of Radu Mărginean, would have claimed 400 thousand euros bribe, after which he made a discount of 200 thousand euros.

And now let us turn from huge amounts of money and staggering wealth to what the Adevărul calls ‘life in the candle light in the 21st century’.

Over 60,000 homes are still not connected to the electrification system, and this could take at least another 5 years.

The authorities are blaming the lack of state budget money, and the energy companies state that the investments in electrification are recovered in hundreds of years.
The state assumed, in 2007, a comprehensive electrification program of all households which were not connected to the network, but the program is proving to be a complete failure after four years.

According to Electric Energy Law, this works are only made with state budget or local budget funds.

Translated by: Manuela Stancu
MA Student, MTTLC, Bucharest University