Romanian highway company director suspended over bribe scandal

Newsroom 02/10/2012 | 13:11

Narcis Neaga, concession director at the Romanian National Company of Motorways and National Roads (CNADNR), has been suspended from the position and faces a disciplinary enquiry following news that bribe demands were included in a CNADNR task book for selecting the consultancy company to update the feasibility study for the Comarnic –Brasov highway.

Gandul.info wrote last week that according to the task book, among the requirements the winning company had to meet was to give CNADNR a “EUR 25,000 – EUR 30,000 new car” to be used for the duration of the contract and EUR 30,000 – 40,000 for training CNADNR employees. Mircea Pop, the head of CNADNR told gandul.info that the inclusion of these two “details” in the task book was a mistake.

The first attempt to build the Comarnic – Brasov highway (58 km) was in 2004 followed by another one in 2010 but both failed. This May, CNADNR announced it will hold a public tender to select a consultancy company to update the feasibility study for the Comarnic –Brasov highway but this was postponed following several appeals.

Participants contested the above mentioned requirements and also the fact that CNADNR wanted the winning company to have previous experience with public-private partnerships (PPP) although Romania hasn’t managed so far to build a highway through such a partnership.

Simona Bazavan