Save Romania Union (USR) MP Emanuel Ungureanu, deputy-chairman of the Health Committee of the Chamber of Deputies, announced on Tuesday that he has filed a criminal complaint with the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) and the European Public Prosecutor’s Office against Health Minister Alexandru Rafila.

„We are talking about suspicions of extremely serious criminal acts, abuse of office, embezzlement and fraud. I am referring in the complaint, which is 12 pages long, to the consultancy contract that Mr Rafila signed in June 2022, countersigned by Secretary of State Alexandru Rogobete, a consultancy contract of 20 million euros that has absolutely no justification in terms of what the law on fiscal responsibility and the appropriateness that any minister should think about when spending European money in particular. And above all we are talking about a contract that is suspected of double financing. We are talking about the financing received by another authority of the Romanian state – ANMCS – the National Authority for Quality Management in Health – which has received significant amounts of money to make quality standards in the Romanian health system, even a quality manual, and Mr Rafila, through double financing, grants 1 million euros to WHO to do exactly the same thing that an authority that is under Mr Ciolacu should have done,” said Emanuel Ungureanu.

According to him, „Rafila has irresponsibly and illegally spent the PNRR money.”

The USR deputy pointed out that the European Public Prosecutor’s Office prosecutors should „urgently investigate the suspicions of abuse of office, embezzlement and fraud in the consultancy contract concluded by Rafila with the WHO,” considering that, unfortunately, „there is a danger that this file be buried by DNA.”

„My hope these days is in the European Public Prosecutor’s Office. It is my message to those who run this institution to quickly investigate this 20 million euro consultancy contract with WHO, because I am afraid that Mr Voineag from the DNA will bury this Rafila consultancy file, just as he did with the file on Iohannis’ BMWs and just as he buried the investigation into two SRI [Romanian Intelligence Service] generals accused of corruption,” said Emanuel Ungureanu.

AGERPRES