Romanian Prosecutors Probe Agriculture Payment Agency - Sources

Romanian anticorruption prosecutors launched a probe into an alleged illegal auction organized by the farming payment agency APIA to buy ATVs, people close to the matter said Thursday.

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In addition, APIA filed a legal complaint to declare the auction contract annulled, the mentioned sources said.

Earlier Thursday, the government’s control body asked the Ministry of Agriculture and the Public Procurement Authority to sanction the guilty parties involved in the auction to buy ATVs, where a noncompliant bid was accepted.

Prime Minister Calin Tariceanu asked the control department in November to check the procurement procedures according to which APIA bought two lots of ATVs, following media reports saying APIA paid double the vehicles’ catalog price.

APIA explained at the time the unjustifiably large price resulted from erroneous data it sent the media. However, the agency’s anti-fraud department started an internal investigation.

Inspectors of the government’s control department also investigated the procedures followed in the auction and found the number of vehicles needed was decided at the central level of the agency, and county branches were not consulted on whether they needed such vehicles or not.

APIA signed a provision and maintenance contract with American ATV for 70 Polaris Ranger 700 EFI ATVs and 125 Polaris Sportsman 500 X2 ATVs, for a total price of RON9.6 million (some EUR2.9 million).

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