Dismissals at RATB, Bucharest City Hall

Bucharest mayor Gabriela Firea on Wednesday sacked the managers of the Attainments Direction from the City Hall over discontent with the bus purchase. Firea also dismissed a RATB (the public transport operator in Bucharest) manager. At the same time, an inquiry committee will probe into the reasons that led to the incident in Bucharest this morning when a going tramway caught fire and our people were slightly injured.

Bucharest mayoress was discontent with the public sale to buy 400 new buses for the Capital public transport fleet.

“We have to renew the RATB rolling stock as soon as possible, as it is old and no major investments have been made for many years (…) I decided to dismiss the leadership of the City Hall’s Attainments Direction as I am deeply discontent with its activity and with the way it had managed the auction to buy new buses. Complex auctions are ahead us for major development projects and we cannot accept any procedure delay either for malpractice or for illegitimate interests,” said Firea in a press release.

The announcement comes after the public sale held by the City Hall to buy 400 new buses, 100 tramways and 100 trolleybuses had been cancelled by SEAP, on the ground that no bidder hadn’t come up with a price offer, as requested.

The municipality blamed an error of the Procurement System which hasn’t processed the request for extending the bids’ deadline.

Mayor Firea also informed she had accepted the resignation of a RATB manager and that an inquiry committee had been set up to investigate the circumstances of the incident this morning when a tramway caught fire en route. Four people were hospitalized with various injuries after they had jumped from the going tramcar.