Interim transport minister Radu Miruță announced the launch of a large-scale inspection into Metrorex, the company operating the Bucharest subway system, on Monday, May 11. The investigation follows initial checks, which revealed alleged financial irregularities, including hundreds of salaries exceeding the legal ceiling and penalties of millions of euros that were not collected.
The ministry, which owns the subway company, also convened the General Shareholders’ Meeting to impose new rules within the company. The institution also wants to verify Metrorex’s costly security, cleaning, and service contracts, recover uncollected penalties from delayed contracts, and impose transparent and competitive rules for advertising contracts, among others.
“General cleanup is beginning at Metrorex,” said Miruță, who is part of the reformist center-right party Save Romania Union, or USR.
At the same press conference, state secretary Horațiu Cosma added that “the problems at Metrorex can no longer be hidden under the rug. They are too serious, too many, and have lasted for too many years.”
“We are talking about extremely costly security and cleaning contracts, made to the detriment of the state and in favor of groups connected to the system; penalties for huge delays in delivering trains for Magistrala 5, which Metrorex has not recovered for months; and delayed construction sites and design contracts on Magistrala M5 or M6,” he said, among others, according to Economedia.
Moreover, the ministry’s checks identified constant exceedances of the legal ceiling of RON 20,054 (EUR 3,800) per employee. Roughly 420 employees are in this situation, including 82 managerial staff. In total, illegal exceedances represent costs of over RON 9.2 million annually.
Cosma said he requested verification of the new Collective Labor Agreement. “It is not normal for the new CLA to be negotiated by a commission dominated by union members in a potential conflict of interest. Basically, the union negotiates with the union,” he added.
Checks also revealed that the salary bonus of Metrorex employees working underground is also given to those working above ground, in offices. Moreover, half of the salary incomes are made up of bonuses, while performance indicators are regularly unmet.
“The staffing scheme resembles the family tree of certain families, and hundreds of cashiers exist in parallel with unused digital terminals,” the state official showed.
Back in April, Social Democratic transport minister Ciprian Șerban signed a subway ticket price increase to RON 7 (some EUR 1.4), up from the current RON 5 on his last day in office. The increase was later delayed by Radu Miruță for 60 days to perform verifications of Metrorex.
(Photo source: Radu Miruţă on Facebook)
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