Ex-Health Minister, Vlad Voiculescu discloses Bodog-Lucan “privileged relation”, says Cluj urologist had informers in the ministry

Former technocrat Health minister Vlad Voiculescu (photo) has launched serious accusations against his successor, the incumbent minister Florian Bodog, saying the “privileged relation” he had with urologist Mihai Lucan, currently prosecuted in a fraud case, was no mystery. Voiculescu stated that Lucan used to have informers in the Health Ministry, who told him about the checks conducted by the ministry’s control body over the Urology and Transplant Institute in Cluj, formerly led by Lucan.

Voiculescu argued that minister Florian Bodog himself conducted a check in Cluj, but nothing wrong had been found out.

„About the priviliged relation of Mr. Lucan with Mr. Bodog, we knew it, an not from recently. I understand they would be relatives, godfather/godson, something in the family… I hope we’ll all find out soon. Decapitation of the Control Body (exactly as Mr. Lucan had threatened) only came to confirm what I had already known….that Mr. Lucan’s threats were based on the priviliged relation with the politicians who were to come back in rule after the elections (…) I also knew that Mr. Lucan had permanent access to classified information from inside the ministry. I know well part of those who used to inform him about every step we took,” the former Health minister said in Facebook post on Friday.

He pointed out that Lucan had information about the ministry’s check, about the prosecutor who was investigating his case. „We know that Mr. Luca and part of his team in Cluj tried to replace the documents in the files, referring to the way the patients were selected and things used to work in his private clinic,”  Vlad Voiculescu added, reminding that during his mandate in 2016 there had been two checks that „brought into the limelight” what was going on at the Institute in Cluj, but that things had changed afterwards.

According to the former minister, the Health Ministry’s check in Cluj during Florin Bodog’s mandate was a „simulation”.

“At the instance of DIICOT, after extremely serious things had been sent to DIICOT in August and November 2016, Mr. Bodog was compelled to send the control body again. So, in May 2017, seven people, members of the Bucharest National Insurance House and of the Control Body made a show of the check in Cluj. Everybody in the ministry knew exactly what they are supposed to find…meaning as less things as possible (…) And they properly treated for this….accommodation for 7 persons in a 5-star hotel in Cluj, with lot of food and drink, although the law allows officials to get accommodation only in 3-star hotels at the most. We don’t know who paid the bill, which should exceed EUR 6,000,” Voiculescu revealed.

Former Democrat-Liberal premier Emil Boc, now mayor of Cluj-Napoca, Emil Boc, Health Minister Florian Bodog and former minister Vasile Dincu have been subpoenaed at the Directorate for Combating Organized Crime (DIICOT) as witnesses in the file where renowned urologist Mihai Lucan is investigated for embezzling money from the Cluj Urology and Transplant Institute on Thursday, but they didn’t come for hearings, arguing they hadn’t received any subpoenas.

Yet, mass media revealed that Health Minister Florian Bodog had been eventually heard at DIICOT on Thursday night.

Bodog commented about the hearing in a Facebook post on Friday, saying he had given full statements in the Lucan file and that, as there is an ogoing investigation, „he has the duty and responsibility to have a discrete, reserved and cautious conduct”.