Tel Drum SA commercial company and its representatives – Petre Pitis and Mircea Visan – on Friday were placed under criminal investigation by prosecutors with the National Anti-Corruption Directorate (DNA) for the offence of using or presenting, in bad faith, false or inaccurate or incomplete documents or statements when such action results in unfairly obtaining European funds, according to DNA.

According to DNA, also prosecuted under the same file are WFA Impex joint stock, WFA Impex representative Florian Ion, and Florea Neda, representative of Tel Drum SA, all for complicity in committing the same offence.

DNA shows that on May 16 a notification was registered with the National Anti-Money Laundering Office regarding suspicions rover the activity of some commercial companies that in 2016 would have used a scheme for illicitly obtaining European funds by overvaluing the price of equipment.

“In July 2015, the Ministry of European Funds accepted for funding a project submitted by the Tel Drum SA company under the programme Increase in Economic Competitiveness financed by European funds. Under the project, Tel Drum SA was to acquire a mobile asphalt mixer station for increasing the economic competitiveness of SC Tel Drum SA,” say the DNA prosecutors.

Following the submission of a reimbursement application in February 2016, Tel Drum SA would have received 4,170,462.5 lei worth of European funds, an amount close to the maximum non-repayable funds eligible for such project.

According to the investigators, Tel Drum SA would have had direct negotiations with the supplier, including the offering the supplier was to extend to WFA Impex SRL, and allegedly provided the winner – SC WFA Impex SRL – with information on the procedure for awarding the contract for the supply of the asset before the announcement having been posted on the www.fonduri-ue.ro website.

Consequently, DNA claims, Tel Drum SA unjustly earned 4,170,462.50 lei in non-repayable European funds.

21 August 2017

Nine O’clock

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