The Dignitaries Will Have Cielo or Logan

The Senators don’t give up on the idea of renewing their automobile fleet. Yesterday, the Senate’s Permanent Bureau received a memorandum written by general secretary Dan Vasiliu. The memorandum proposes the purchase of 140 new cars.

RENEWAL. The Senators will have new cars in their parking lot.

Dan Vasiliu is actually a proposal of his predecessor, Constantin Sava, who forwarded the idea of spending the 43 billion lei left from last year’s budget for renewing the automobile fleet. The Senate owns 142 cars: 135 Dacia Supernova made in 2001, 5 Cielo made in 1997 and two Espero made in 1995. According to the memorandum, all of them have traveled for more than 100,000 km, and the maintenance costs have increased from 2 billion lei, between 2001 and 2002, to 5 billion lei in 2004. Between January the 1st and March the 20th, the Senate spent 1.2 billion lei for the repairing and maintenance of the cars they use. This way, the solution would be the purchase of 140 new cars, 137 of which should be distributed at the Senatorial offices, and 3 should be kept as a backup. Vasiliu has proposed the Senate to buy cars from companies which would be able to offer the buy-back system. This means that the value of the purchased cars should be diminished by the value of the old cars, which would be traded. The members of the Permanent Bureau have settled for Romanian cars, and they should choose from Cielo and Logan during the following week.

CARDS

Due to the great sums that the Senate’s money office is forced to circulate each month, Dan Vasiliu has also proposed the initiation of the ATM cards system for the payments regarding the salaries of senators and clerks. In the paydays, the institution’s money office fights with no less than 10 billion lei, representing payments for the senators and salaries for the employees. According to a memorandum forwarded by Vasiliu, in a month time, more than 13 billion lei circulate in the Senate each month. 3.6 billions represent the senators’ payments, 1.7 billions their daily rates, 1.1 billions are the money for the ones that are housed and 300 millions are the money for their cars’ fuel. Besides these sums, 5.6 billions are for the salaries of the employees in the central offices, and 750 millions go to the employees in the territorial offices. To make these sums circulate, each month, the Senate uses an armored-car, with the corresponding security. Renting it costs 2,500,000 lei.

To get rid of the hook of moving the money from one place to another, the Senate’s leading board has asked for offers for ATM cards from Banc Post, BCR (Romanian Commercial Bank) and BRD (Romanian Development Bank). The installation of an ATM machine in the old headquarters building is also a request. The senators are to say their opinion on the initiation of the ATM cards and to choose the place where they want the ATM machines to be installed: in the old or in the new headquarters.