Under The Sign of Corruption

There are six weeks to go till Romanians will become full members of the European Union and get rid of their inferiority complex. Yet Romania’s main problem continues to be rampant corruption, and not the problems brought about by the immigration of the work force or of the salaries lagging behind prices.

Though priding itself with being the "little Paris", the capital Bucharest and its political elite are closer to those in a third world country, just out of the colonial rule a few decades ago.

The last case in point is the one provided by the procurement deal of the Ministry for National Defense, which chose the more expensive offer and the poorer quality military transport planes of an Italian company, over the better deal put forward by the Spanish subsidiary of EADS.

Official statistics of past performance show the Spanish-made plane had better characteristics, at a cheaper price, while the Italian company made its mark with providing Greece three planes which take water when it rains. The planes in Greece are not allowed to fly any longer, and the contract had been suspended.

In Romania’s recent bid a few pre-conditions miraculously changed after the bidding process had opened, tailored to favor the Italian offer over the Spanish one, No doubt the media will continue to uncover the shady sides of this deal, provided the Ministry of Defense does not make an about-face and rights the wrong it did so far.

A colleague of mine recently made a statistics of the defense procurements in the past 15 years and arrived at a very disturbing conclusion: 80% of the money spent, or two billion dollars were virtually wasted on modernizing old military equipment, instead of buying new one.
Much like one would try to mount air-conditioning on a 30-year old Romanian made-car to make it competitive with the new cars on the market …

A recent official report stated that 85% of Romania’s military equipment was morally or physically outdated.
This is quite scary statistics when considering the ability to defend the national territory or to defend collective interests as a NATO-member country.

This status was fed by years of fake open procurement deals, in which transparent bidding was replaced with direct negotiations or selection of offers.

There is only one way to prove our good faith: starting the bidding process in the latter case all over again. If not, serious question marks over the honesty of the current administration in Bucharest, from the officials in the Ministry of Defense to the President, will bog the minds of authorities in Brussels, just as the country joins the club of EU member states.