PM asks for the dismissal of eight heads of agencies for payments and social inspection

Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu requested, on Thursday, at the beginning of the government meeting, the suspension from office of the heads of the agencies for payments and social inspection in Bucharest and in seven counties. He said that following checks on social centres, launched after the horror asylum scandal, “intolerable situations” had been discovered.

Ciolacu claimed that checks made at the national level in centers for the elderly and people with disabilities show “clear data and facts” that compel “firm decisions”.

“There is an intolerable situation – centers without authorization, centers that operated clandestinely under the eyes of the Romanian state officials, plus other centers with serious problems closed or with suspended activity. It is inadmissible”, said PM Ciolacu. According to him, the biggest problems were discovered in the centers of Bucharest, especially in sector 1, and in the counties of Arad, Giurgiu, Constanța, Maramureș, Hunedoara, Teleorman and Vrancea.

He asked the new Minister of Labor, Simona Bucura Oprescu, that all the heads of the county agencies for payments and social inspections in these counties, plus the head of the Bucharest municipal agency, be “urgently” suspended from office until the disciplinary investigations are completed.

Ciolacu requested the same measures in the case of the Labor Inspection leadership, saying that working conditions from the Middle Ages were discovered:

“We found that there is also a huge problem with undeclared work in these centres. Sometimes there were conditions of the Middle Ages in these centers in terms of working conditions. From my point of view, it is clear that the Labor Inspection did not do its duty.  Madam Minister, I ask you to take the same measure in the case of the head of this institution. My opinion is that we need to be much braver and start to abolish institutions altogether, which have proven their inability to cope with the demands at this time”.

Also, the prime minister asked the presidents of the county councils, under which the general directorates of social assistance in the mentioned counties are located, to start replacing all these directors: “It is obvious that they did not do their job and duty. If they do not do this, they will also answer to the Romanians who voted for them”.

Ciolacu also stated that the Secretary of State Bogdan Despescu informed him that he had also ordered checks at the county police inspectorates in Arad, Maramureş, Hunedoara, Teleorman, Vrancea and at the Capital Police.

“I am firmly convinced that dismissals and resignations are necessary, but they only solve part of the problem. That’s why the other essential part follows, the amendment of the legislation regarding the accreditation, licensing, monitoring and control of these centers”, the prime minister also said, claiming that the Minister of Labor “will quickly come up with the new legislative amendments”, and next week there will be consultations on this topic with civic organizations and patient associations.

Checks on centers for the elderly and people with disabilities were triggered at national level after the scandal regarding the three nursing homes in Voluntary and Afumati where unimaginable abuses took place – people were beaten, starved, put to various jobs, kept with wounds to the bone and unmedicated.