The director of the municipal company “Central Market” and four division heads will be investigated for abuse of power because they collected informal payments from persons renting trading places at the market. Companies and persons selling at this market will be questioned selectively, IPN reports.

On July 9, employees of the National Anticorruption Center and prosecutors carried out searches at the Central Market. According to a communiqué of the Center, documents, bookkeeping records, drafts and stamps of economic entities were confiscated from the offices of the five functionaries.

Unofficial payments were collected from traders without indicating them in the accounting documents. As traders said, the taxes varied depending on the location of the booth or table and the volume of goods sold. Besides the rent, a seller of citrus fruit, for example, paid additionally €200-300 a month per the trading place. The prosecutors estimate that a sum of 4 million lei was collected illegally every month.

The National Anticorruption Center and the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office call on those who were obliged to make illegal payments for a trading place at the Central Market to contact the Center’s Guard Unit on (022) 257-202 or the trust line (022) 257-257.