He also said he would start taking measures at Metrorex to cover the financial needs of the Bucharest metro operator, so that there would be no need to raise prices at all, notes HotNews.
In addition to signing the order to suspend the metro ticket price hikes, Mirutse also decided to convene Metrorex’s board of directors to fire CEO Mariana Micheleus.
Lost profits and uncollected fines
“In the two days since my arrival at the Ministry of Transport, I have studied the financial situation and tried to analyze the arguments on the basis of which the decision was taken to increase the price from 5 lei to 7 lei. The amount resulting from this increase will amount to 59 million lei per year, which is almost 2.5% of the entire Metrorex budget. (…) I looked for alternatives to compensate this amount of 59 million lei per year by reorganizing Metrorex’s activities. And even at the first inspection I found 60 million euros – uncollected money in the form of fines imposed for the delay in the fulfillment of one contract with Metrorex,” Radu Miruta said on Wednesday.
The minister is referring to the contract with French company Alstom, which caused huge delays in the delivery of metro trains. Alstom was contractually obliged to put 13 new metro trains into operation by June 2023, but no new train has been put into operation so far.
“After this period, nine months have passed – during which the invoice for the fine should have been issued the very next day – until the invoice was issued. No further action was taken after the invoice was issued. This alone is 5 times more money than could have been gained from raising this fine,” Mirutse said.
In addition, the minister claims to have discovered many other irregularities in the company that have led to uncollected funds in recent years.
“We found a situation of not leasing out commercial spaces in the metro station network. We discovered advertising contracts awarded without competitive bidding. Imagine how much money could have been lost due to the lack of a competitive procedure. We discovered a company that uses Metrorex depots and buildings for free without paying anything. We discovered a sports base in Chiurel, which is used by the Metrorex union, collecting money from events held there without legal grounds and not paying money to Metrorex, which owns the sports base,” HotNews quoted Mirutse as saying.
“We have revealed the situation with the parking lot in Straulesti, where losses of MDL 4 million per year were recorded despite requests for public-private partnership to manage it, and now Metrorex no longer pays MDL 4 million per year,” Mirutse said, specifying that the parking lot is managed by the husband of Metrorex CEO Mariana Micheleus.
“We found a tripling of Metrorex employees’ salaries in the last 10 years, given that the number of employees working for Metrorex is one and a half times the number of employees working for the metro network in Vienna, where the figure is twice as high,” the acting minister also said.
The former minister’s “parting gift”
The metro fare increase was requested by Metrorex’s board of directors, and Transportation Minister Ciprian Sherban of the PSD party approved it the day before his resignation.
Thus, as of May 1, the cost of one trip was to increase from 5 to 7 lei, two trips from 10 to 14 lei, and ten trips from 40 to 55 lei.
In addition, the cost of a 24-hour pass was to rise to 18 lei (from the current 12), a weekly pass to 60 lei (from 45), a monthly pass to 140 lei (from 100), a six-month pass to 700 lei (from 500), and an annual pass to 1,300 lei (from 900).
For now, the decision is suspended for 60 days to study the situation in more detail and find alternative solutions.
