The Foundation For The Defense Of Citizens Against State Abuses (FACIAS) has exposed a new instance of public expenditure being misspent. The management of the National Railway Company (CFR SA) is set to receive substantial salary increases in 2025, despite the company's failure to generate a net profit over the past three years. According to an official response to FACIAS, the remuneration for members of the management will increase by 50%, reaching 3,055,452 lei in 2025, compared to 2,081,339 lei in 2024.
Notwithstanding the considerable financial challenges confronted by CFR SA, the corporation has implemented a salary increase. In its formal response, the company has conceded that it failed to generate a net profit in the years 2022, 2023 and 2024, with the release of the final financial statements for the previous year being scheduled for May 2025. Furthermore, CFR SA acknowledges that the public funds allocated for infrastructure repair, maintenance and modernisation have been inadequate, covering only 50% of the actual needs between 2022 and 2024.
Notwithstanding this fact, CFR SA remains subject to evaluation based on the utilisation of allocated financial resources as opposed to the tangible enhancement of service delivery. The company's overall performance index stands at 104.41%, a figure that does not necessarily reflect the enhancement of passenger services. Rather, it is indicative of the strategic allocation of funds received by the company. For instance, the company received 1.76 billion lei in 2022, 1.79 billion lei in 2023 and 3.54 billion lei in 2024 for track maintenance, yet the infrastructure remains outdated, trains continue to run late, and passenger safety and comfort are seriously affected.
FACIAS has highlighted that, in spite of the dire financial circumstances confronting CFR SA, the Romanian state persists in endorsing a remuneration strategy that stands in defiance of the tenets of prudent governance. The financial resources allocated to management compensation have undergone a substantial augmentation in 2025, with no discernible substantiation offered to support this decision, whether in terms of performance evaluations or tangible outcomes.
In this particular context, FACIAS calls upon the Ministry of Transport to publicly expound the performance indicators on which the salary increase was based, and to present concrete measures with which to hold the management of state-owned companies accountable. Simultaneously, FACIAS requests that the Court of Auditors initiate an urgent investigation into the use of public funds within CFR SA, and to ascertain whether these increases are in accordance with the legislation on salaries in state companies.