The Foundation for the Defense of the Citizen Against State Abuses (FACIAS) has recently submitted to the National Anticorruption Directorate (NAD) a criminal complaint regarding the possible commission of corruption and/or corruption-related offences in connection with the purchase, in May 2020, by the State Energy Holdings Management Company (SEHMC) of about 100 .000.000 facial masks for medical use from Vietnam, for the amount of 148.314.000 lei (approx. 30 million USD), which were only 5% of the value of the sale.
The complaint is directed against the Minister of Economy at the time, Virgil Popescu, but also against the management of SEHMC, the National Company Romarm SA and other persons to be identified during the criminal proceedings.
The shipment cost $1.75 million:
In short the story of the mask cannon during the pandemic is as follows: the Romanian State through the Ministry of Economy led by Virgil Popescu decides to fight speculation on the Romanian market and comes up with the idea to purchase a huge quantity of anti-covid 19 protective masks. In order to make the purchase possible through a company subordinated to the ministry in question, the State Energy Holdings Management Company (SEHMC) receives the necessary CAEN code overnight and quickly becomes a mask dealer. The former minister Virgil Popescu himself was responsible for adding the field of activity. It was later discovered that SEHMC could not handle all the operations of the purchase and the National Company Romarm SA, which was to handle the transport of the masks that were to be brought from Vietnam, was also involved. The Romarm NC does not do this with its own forces and uses the services of a private company, which in turn uses a Ukrainian army plane to bring the masks to Romania. The 6 Vietnam - Romania transports cost the Romanian state a fabulous 1.75 million dollars, an overpriced price, if we consider that 8 flights from Turkey to Romania with planes of the Ministry of National Defence cost a total of 150,000 euros.
95% of the masks bought for nothing:
Back to the 100,000 million masks, we come to the time when they were brought into the country. They are handed over for storage to another private firm for €20,000 a month, also an overpriced price, according to the Court of Auditors' 2021 report. SEHMC manages to sell, as we recall the aim was to combat speculation, only 5,234,150 pieces of the 95,970,000 pieces purchased, i.e. 5% of the stock purchased, with the sum of 7,014,000 lei collected. It is important to note here that one of the SEHMC customers was also the Romanian State, namely the Ministry of Education, which bought about 2 million masks at a price significantly higher than the market price. The remaining impressive number of masks was later donated to the Romanian State, namely the Emergency Situations Inspectorate.
In total, the whole "deal" cost Romania 148,314,000 lei excluding VAT, representing:
- 112,868,000 lei for the purchase of 95,970,000 pieces of masks;
- 24,098,000 lei for air transport services;
- 7 846 000 lei for storage, packaging, handling, warehousing and internal transport services;
- 2,395,000 lei for Vietnam support services, cargo loading, ground handling;
- 1,107,000 lei for commission for commercial operations.
The damage in this fabulous case, calculated and established by the Court of Auditors, is represented by the difference between the value of the masks purchased and the value of those sold, i.e. the huge sum of 141,300,000 lei. 141.300.000 lei.
Consequently, FACIAS referred the matter to DNA because the multiple irregularities surrounding this purchase show that the declared purpose, namely to combat speculation, was by far a lie, 95% of the masks were bought without being used, and a number of private companies earned huge sums from overvalued prices.
For details, read the text of FACIAS's complaint at www.facias.ro