The Court of Auditors ascertained the inefficient management of tens of millions of lei from the Road Fund following an audit for 2014-2017. It was also established that the amounts collected into the Road Fund decreased each year and no transparency was ensured in the distribution of the Fund’s resources, IPN reports.

Senior state inspector Aliona Oboroceanu said road repair works to the value of 29 million have been carried out in the absence of execution projects. The Road Fund loses money also because the authorities didn’t complete the process of procuring information services for ensuring the functioning of the e-vignette system. The money collected as taxes for issuing international road transport authorizations is transferred with delay. Also, there is no information system between the Customs Service and the National Auto Transport Agency.

Aliona Oboroceanu also said that money for repairing and reconstructing roads and for purchasing the necessary equipment is annually allocated from the Road Fund, but the efficient use of the funds was affected by the deficiencies and irregularities in the procurement process managed by the State Road Administration. The inefficient financial management at eight of the 11 joint stock companies responsible for the maintenance of the national roads generated inefficient costs of over 47 million lei.

Director general of the State Road Administration Gheorghe Curmei stated the efficient use of the Road Fund’s resources depends on the predictability of the size of the Fund every year. Now the Fund does not enable to execute repair works and only maintenance works are carried out. The works to the value of 29 million lei were maintenance works and didn’t need execution projects as in the case when changes are made in the road system.

As to the accusations of inefficient use of the Road Fund resources, Gheorghe Curmei said the available money is used to execute only maintenance works and not many resources remain for road repair works. To ensure the efficiency of the money invested in road repair, the authorities will impose a guarantee period during which the contractors will be responsible for road maintenance.