RON 800,000 can be stolen in one city hall in Romania on an annual basis from local taxes and fees paid by the citizens, the head of the Court of Accounts, Nicolae Vacaroiu said on Thursday in a meeting with the senators from the finances and industries committees. According to him, the Court of Accounts is identifying one or two such cases countrywide every week.
“The Court has discussed last week an example of a commune where RON 800,000 are stolen form local taxes paid by the citizens. It’s no isolated issue, we have one or two such cases per week. (…) In 80 per cent of the cases the money is paid back in 24 hours, but it’s still theft,” Vacaroiu stated.
The head of the Court of Accounts says that the easiest way to check is to verify the pay desk. “We take the receipts for one year and sum them up, then we check the money in the treasury,” Vacaroiu explained.
He informed that last year the Court of Accounts sent to court 124 criminal records from 3,200 territorial units. The Court has also ordered 13,500 measures, including to recover the prejudices, with 11% of them (1,500) being challenged.