General Manager of Romania’s SAPARD Payment Agency Resigns

Laszlo Klarik, general manager of Romania’s Agency for Rural Development and Fishing (APDRP), which manages SAPARD payments, submitted his resignation Friday.

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Romanian agriculture minister, Dacian Ciolos, accepted Klarik’s resignation, which becomes effective as of September 15.

Sorin Radu, acting manager of the agency's Satu Mare Regional Center, northwestern Romania, will become interim manager as of September 15.

A contest will be organized soon to appoint the new general manager the payment agency.

Klarik’s resignation comes after the authorities’ decision to suspend payments to SAPARD beneficiaries, following the deficiencies signaled by the European Commission in June’s audit report.

After Romanian authorities halted payments to SAPARD beneficiaries, Klarik said he would not resign, stressing this gesture would not make things better.

Several managers with the payment agency have submitted their resignations lately, but Klarik said at that time their resignations had nothing to do with the situation involving SAPARD funds.

Romanian authorities suspended SAPARD payments after the European Commission signaled deficiencies in an audit in June.

The Commission asked Romania to set up a plan to solve the signaled deficiencies, and will resume SAPARD payments after the response presented by an independent auditor’ report.

The Agency announced on September 1 it had implemented the set of measures meant to alleviate the deficiencies signaled by the European Commission, and submitted a report to the National Fund.

The National Fund is authorized to send evaluations to the Agriculture and Rural Development Department within the European Commission.

The National Fund will resume payments to SAPARD beneficiaries after it checks whether the recommendations of the European Commissions have been observed.

The plan includes the consolidation of the agency’s procedures, improving the database of the system payments and developing human resources. Of great importance is the payments authorization procedure.

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