PRESS RELEASE

Following the Nastase - Zambaccian case, here it is another "real estate scheme" which unveils the way some PSD ministers are getting hold of fortunes they are unworthy of

The Union for the Reconstruction of Romania - URR acknowledged surprisingly, out of the pages of "Catavencu's Academy" (no. 48, 3-9 December, 2002), the fact that the Minister of Justice, Madame Rodica Stanoiu possesses negotiating abilities almost unnatural. In short, here it is what happened: Madame Minister sold her parents house of Filiasi to the local Petrom subsidiary for the amount of 100.000 $. The unusual of this business is that the evaluation of the house, evaluation made by some reporters of the already mentioned magazine, reporters who had investigated widely the poor real estate local market, was no more than 10.000 $. A bigger, better looking house and with a better location than the one of the Madame minister sold with approximately 11.000 $, not to mention that a splendid interwar villa compared to which the inheritance of the Madame minister Stanoiu would only be appropriate of functioning as households outbuildings was valued to 30.000 $.

A possible explanation of the Petrom's generosity towards the Madame Minister would be the hushing up by the Ministry of Justice of some suspiciously similar scandal, in which the former board of Petrom Dolj bought for 37.5 billions lei some fuel tanks from another "talented" businessman, fuel tanks which weren't worth 1 billion.

Far from sharing the naivety of those reporters, who demanded that Madame Stanoiu should be arrested URR simply wants find out the answers to the following questions from the Adrian Nastase - Prime minister's side:

• What creative sociology methods of misinforming will the Government laboratories use in order to present this "real estate scheme" as a normal transaction, perfectly legal?
• How will be convinced the NATO partners that the acquisition of a ministerial house for a price ten times bigger than the real one does not represents a corruption deed which should not deter the Romanian adherence to the Alliance? Perhaps it is already decided: the project of selling further on this house to the Minister of Defense, this time for 1.000.000 $ for building on its surroundings of 2.714 square meters a 30 floors NATO military base, right next to the Filiasi station!
• How many hundreds of small crooks would have to be arrested in change for Madame Stanoiu's freedom in order that the obsolescent refrain against corruption could be cried out stronger and stronger?
• What alterations of the Criminal Code has in mind the Minister of Justice in order to punish the imprudence of the reporters of the "Catavencu's Academy" as it should be punished? Or no alteration is necessary?
• What ways of persuasion used the big chiefs of PSD in order to force mass-media of Romania (mainly television and radios) to keep it quite regarding this subject and to behave themselves, the day the material was printed, as if it never existed?
• Which is the highest grade of imprudence (if there is one) of the PSD ministers in presenting without blinking their thefts as normal transactions, which everyone can do with the generous Romanian state?

Cosmin Alexandru
President, Union for the Reconstruction of Romania - URR