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| Mayors and the Fight Against Corruption |
| (2011-12-23) |
| Last updated: 2011-12-27 18:28 EET |
Corruption scandals never seem to end in Romania, a country perceived in Europe as still having work to do in this regard. The recent arrests among mayors are proof of that.
The National Anti-Corruption Directorate is constantly praised by European Commission reports for its progress related to the judiciary. Its prosecutors have recently ended an investigation that once again raises the question of the morality of the elected local officials. Two mayors from some of the wealthiest villages around Bucharest, Jilava and Snagov, have been arrested for 29 days for bribery and peddling in influence.
This case involves millions of euros, a county council vice-president and two public notaries, and revolves around a real estate affair. The mayor of Jilava, Adrian Mladin, and the mayor of Snagov, Musat Apostol, are suspected of having abusively issued approvals for construction involving 25 hectares of land. This land, right outside Jilava, in Ilfov county, was not officially covered by zoning certificates, therefore could not be tabulated.
According to prosecutors, after the zoning plan was issued, the abusively consolidated plot of land was to be sold to a private company. This corruption scandal follows a series of revelations carried by the central press for some years now related to dubious business involving land in Bucharest’s environs. These former villages have become prime land when the real estate business took off, a paradise for speculators, some of whom are public officials.
This case also showcases local corruption, irrespective of political affiliation, and proves that bribery knows no boundaries defined by party ideology. The mayor of Jilava is a member of the Liberal Party in the opposition, while the mayor of Snagov is a member of the Liberal Democratic Party, which now holds the majority in Parliament. The arrests are just one episode of a long series.
The Liberal Democratic mayor of Cluj, Sorin Apostu, is also under investigation for allegedly requesting and receiving 100,000 euros as a bribe. In the last few years, the National Anti-Corruption Directorate has been investigating a lot of village and town mayors, but even so, Romania is still perceived as lagging behind in the fight against corruption, especially since it is next to last on the list of EU countries in terms of combating this plague.
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