The director of the Agency for Intervention and Payments in Agriculture (AIPA) Petru Maleru reacted to the accusations that representatives of the Agency ask for bribe for providing subsidies. The official said he has evidence showing that the statements made by ex-minister of agriculture Vasile Bumacov, the chairman of “UniAgroProtect” Alexandru Slusari and the manager of an agricultural company Aliona Mandati are liars, IPN reports.
According to the AIPA chief, starting with 2014 the Agency has been repeatedly accused, especially its Field Inspection Division. The real situation now is not the best one and the Agency more often identifies cases of frauds, presentation of falsified documents and other attempts to break the law made by the recipients of subsidies. However, this year the Agency does not have debts to the subsidization fund for 2015. This is because upper subsidization quotas and ceilings on some of the measurers are no longer deliberately introduced. Thus, the Agency is now not put in the situation to accept applications for large subdivides, without having the right to reject them.
Petru Maleru said he considers that the subsidization results in 2015 are laudable at a time when the number of subsidies and the available subsidization resources were much lower than last year. “I want to note that the subsidization fund totals 610 million lei, 230 million of which represents debts for last year. The remaining sum of 370 million lei is now being distributed,” he stated.
Field Inspection Division head Marin Mortean, who is accused of being named to this post at the AIPA after he was dismissed from the National Anticorruption Center on suspicion of acts of corruption, presented his employment record book to show that the information made public by Alexandru Slusari and Aliona Mandati is not true.
In a TV program recently, Vasile Bumacov, Alexandru Slusari and Aliona Mandati said that those from the administration of the AIPA ask for a percentage of the subsidies for which farmers apply and even falsified projects in order to get subsidies for something that is inexistent.
