The fifth edition of the “Black Book of Public Money Waste” was launched in the 2023 Media Forum. The work includes eight journalistic investigation published this year, about the use by different persons of schemes and fraudulent practices to obtain personal gains from the management of public money, IPN reports.
The Association of Independent Press said that during five years since its first edition was launched, the “Black Book of Public Money Waste” has become an annual chronicle of bad management of public money and property. “The authors of the publication do nothing but follow the government’s actions at the central and local levels and then discover and document the “black holes” through which the money intended for the development of communities gets into private pockets or is simply used irrationally. This is what the journalists show in their materials and I think we should find means to encourage them to do this further, in the best and most assumed way,” said the editor of the publication Viorica Zaharia.
Year by year, the “Black Book of Public Money Waste” presents cases of serious negligence in the management of projects with important investments from national and European funds, which thwart the initiatives to improve infrastructure and prevent the development of communities, said Raimar Wagner, director of the Office for Romania and the Republic of Moldova of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom of Germany.
“By printing this book, we aim to contribute to building a transparent and democratic society. The publication is an instrument for monitoring eventual deviations from the established good governance norms and transmits a message to the authorities – that their work is being followed and can be investigated at the first sign of irregularity,” stated Raimar Wagner.
The first edition of the “Black Book” was launched in the Republic of Moldova by the Association of Independent Press and the Friedrich Naumann Foundation in 2019, by the example of mates form Bulgaria, the “Black Book” being the most famous regional project for the investigation of the appropriation of funds offered by the EU.
The book is printed in Romania, English and Russian and will be distributed by the Association of Independent Press to law enforcement and inspection agencies, members of Parliament, foreign embassies and representative offices, national liberties, other interested institutions and persons.
The work was published by the Office for Romania and the Republic of Moldova of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, with financial support from the German Federal Foreign Office in the framework of the project “Expanding Cooperation with Civil Society in the Eastern Partnership Countries and Russia”.
