- “10,000 servings of rib and rib, homemade sausage and beans, along with sauerkraut salad, bread and tea”this is how the last “order” paid from public money by an institution subordinate to Hubert Thuma (PNL), the president of the Ilfov County Council, shows.
- The “feast” with beans and cilantro will take place on December 1, on the occasion of the National Day, in the Ilfove town of Buftea and is organized by the County Center for Culture, which, in addition to the food, rented a tent equipped with tables and benches for over 12,000 euros.
- In total, over 60,000 euros will go from the accounts of the institution subordinated to the Ilfov County Council. The deal was “initialized” in just 15 minutes, during which three direct contracts were awarded to a single firm.
- In addition, the mayor Gheorghe Pistol, the party colleague of the president CJ Thuma, paid from the local budget of the city of Buftea over 30,000 euros for “a musical show” supported by, among others, Fuego and Tronos, the official choir of the Patriarchate.
- The concert will take place next to the traditional food tent. The money will go into the accounts of a company owned by Andra Pancu, the wife of former footballer Daniel Pancu, who is also a candidate on the PSD lists for the General Council of the Capital in 2020.
Beans with a pestle from public money, in Ilfov, on National Day
Year after year, Romania’s National Day becomes an opportunity to spend public money on concerts, fireworks or traditional food. All this is offered and presented to tax payers, on posters with electoral ID, with the title “free”.
Ilfovul, the county that surrounds the Capital, is no exception to this landscape. The Ilfov Center for the Conservation and Promotion of Traditional Culture, an institution subordinate to the County Council led by Hubert Thuma (PNL), bought 10,000 portions of traditional food.
More precisely, Ilfoven residents who will come on December 1, Romania Day, to Mihai Eminescu Square in Buftea will receive rib eye and rib, homemade sausage with beans, along with sauerkraut salad, bread and tea.
Also, the Ilfov County Culture Center rented a 1,500 square meter tent with tables, benches and ten mobile toilets during the “feast”.
All this will remove more than 60,000 euros from the accounts of the institution subordinated to the liberal Hubert Thuma.
The purchase was broken into three direct contracts, avoiding the auction, which, according to the public procurement law, must be organized for services exceeding 270,000 lei, i.e. approximately 54,000 euros.
Thus, in one day, on November 20, the center that should promote the traditional culture of Ilfov concluded three contracts with the same SRL: Nicogri-com 96 SRL.
A simple calculation shows that the total value of the three contracts would have exceeded the threshold provided by law for directly entrusted purchases by approximately 7,000 euros.
The company that received the contracts is owned by the Grinzeanu family, and in 2024 the turnover of the SRL exceeded 4,000,000 euros. The average number of employees was 37, according to the data submitted to the Ministry of Public Finance.
The traditional food will be served to the residents of Ilfov during an event, which also includes a “musical show”, during which various artists will take the stage, including Fuego, Plăiesii, the Doina Ilfovului Ensemble or even Tronos, the official choir of the Romanian Patriarchate.
The concerts within the event are also paid for from public money, but diverted from another budget. More precisely, from the local treasury of the city of Buftea, led by Ghoerghe Pistol, the subordinate on the party line of the liberal Hubert Thuma.
The contract for these services exceeds 30,000 euros and was entrusted directly by the Buftea City Hall to Studio Artist Management, an LLC controlled by Andra Pancu, the wife of former footballer Daniel Pancu, who is also a candidate on the PSD lists for the General Council of the Capital in 2020.
Buletin de Bucharest also wrote about the business of the Andrei Pancu company with public money, most recently, in an investigation about how a company with a single employee controlled by it took care of the technical part of an event organized by the Bucharest County Center for Culture.
The event was organized by the institution subordinated to the head of PNL Ilfov under the pretext of promoting Roma culture, through a party with maneles at which the headliners are some of the most popular singers of the genre: Tzancă Uraganu, Bogdan de la Ploiești, Adrian Minune and Vali Vijelie.
Moreover, in the past BdB also discovered how a company with a single employee owned by it received from the City Hall led by Robert Negoiță almost 4,000 euros for an hour of concert in the IOR Park.
Engineer, director of Culture a Life. Now retired
Since 2018, the manager of CJCI is Alexandrina Niță, retired. Three years ago, Buletin de București also wrote about the CV of the head of the institution, from which the studies are missing.
We only learn from the CV sent that from 1983 to 1993, he was an engineer, in Sibiu and then at SC Precizia, and he even worked in the Ministry of Electrotechnical Industry.
From 1993, he taught Mathematics, Geography, History at the school in Buftea until 2000, when he began his career in Culture, as the director of the Ilfov County Department of Culture.
For 17 years he managed to stay in the director’s chair and, after retirement, he was an adviser until he was appointed as manager of the Center for the Conservation and Promotion of Traditional Culture Ilfov, where he is still today, 7 years after his appointment.
In addition to the pension, Alexandrina Niță also receives a monthly salary of over 2,000 euros from this position.
In 2022, Buletin de Bucharest wrote that within two years, CJCI paid Metropola TV, controlled by Gabriela Firea’s husband, over 4.4 million lei for the promotion and media coverage of cultural heritage and cultural events in Ilfov.
Buletin de București reporters requested a point of view from the Ilfov County Center for Culture, but by the time the article was published we had not received any response. The head of the Ilfov County Council, Hubert Thuma, did not provide any answers to the questions asked by BdB journalists.
Editor: Cătălin Doscaș
