Former Prime Minister Florin Cîțu, now a senator of the PNL (National Liberal Party), is under criminal investigation for two offenses of complicity in abuse of office, with particularly serious consequences, in the case of anti-Covid vaccines, as announced by the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA).
The former Liberal PM was heard d on Wednesday at DNA HQs in the case related to Covid-19 vaccines. A week ago, the Senate decided to lift his immunity.
“What I can tell you is that I exercised my duties as prime minister in compliance with the current legislation. I cannot say more than that. If you look at the budget execution for 2021, you will see that the execution is better than estimated at the beginning of the year,” stated Florin Cîțu upon leaving.
When asked whether he is guilty or not, Florin Cîțu replied, “I exercised my duties as prime minister, in compliance with the current legislation. I cannot discuss the case; I can only tell you that everything I did at that time was in compliance with the current legislation. The truth will come out during this investigation.”
The DNA prosecutors base their accusations in the Covid-19 vaccine case, where Florin Cîțu, Vlad Voiculescu, and Ioana Mihăilă are investigated for abuse of office and complicity in abuse of office, on the fact that the three, who were prime minister and health ministers, approved the purchase of tens of millions of vaccine doses beyond the already contracted amount, covering more than enough for the estimated population to be vaccinated against the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The name of the current head of the National Health Insurance House, Andrei Baciu, also appears in the prosecutors’ report.
In the report sent by DNA prosecutors to the Senate, requesting the lifting of immunity for Florin Cîțu, anti-corruption prosecutors outline the history of Covid-19 vaccine acquisitions by the Florin Cîțu government.
Prosecutors argue that in December 2020, Romania contracted over 37.5 million vaccine doses through the European Commission, while reporting an estimated population to be vaccinated of 10.7 million people. In the end, Romania ended up ordering and paying for over 90 million vaccine doses. “In conclusion, all vaccines contracted after January 1, 2021, were in surplus.
Subtracting the total doses contracted until the end of 2020 (37,588,366 doses) from the total (90,394,056 doses), there is a surplus of 52,805,690 doses,” the prosecutors’ report states. The total value of the surplus Covid-19 vaccines is approximately 1,005,498,687 euros, plus VAT, which has allegedly prejudiced the state budget, prosecutors further specify.
According to DNA, those responsible for these unnecessary acquisitions are Florin Cîțu, the prime minister at the time, as well as Vlad Voiculescu and Ioana Mihăilă, as health ministers, along with Andrei Baciu, who was the state secretary in the Ministry of Health and assumed ministerial responsibilities after Florin Cîțu dismissed Vlad Voiculescu.
Mainly, prosecutors claim that the first vaccine doses contracted (33,328,096 doses accepted by the former minister Nelu Tătaru and 4,260,270 doses accepted by Vlad Voiculescu in December 2020) were sufficient to vaccinate a number of 23 million people, more than double the number reported to the European Commission, which estimated that 10.7 million Romanians would be vaccinated. Everything purchased afterward was surplus and constitutes the calculated damage of over one billion euros.