The National Integrity Authority (ANI) has found a substantial discrepancy between the wealth, income and expenses of the mayor of Calarasi Ion Olari and his family members for the period 2019-2021 and the possession of unjustified wealth in the total amount of 1,504,093 lei.

The control of the wealth and personal interests of Ion Olari was initiated in March 2022, almost a year before he was detained by the officers of the National Anti-Corruption Centre (CNA) and placed under preventive arrest, being targeted in several cases, started on corruption offences.

According to the act of finding issued by ANI on February 10, Ion Olari violated the legal regime of declaration of wealth and personal interests, by not declaring for 2019 the salary income of his wife in the amount of 5 990 lei, not declaring the income obtained from dividends received from the “OLBI COM” Ltd. in the amount of 800 000 lei; non-declaration for the years 2016, 2017 of the status of director of the “OLBI COM” Ltd. and non-declaration for the years 2018, 2019 of the status of founder of the “OLBI COM” Ltd. held during that period.

“The act of finding will be forwarded to the court in order to apply the necessary insurance measures and to order the collection for the benefit of the state of the value of the unjustified wealth or its confiscation,” ANI notes.

The act is not final and may be contested in the order established by law.

“After the finality of the finding, ANI will refer the matter to the competent authority with a view to terminating the mayor’s mandate. She will also be disqualified from holding a public office or a position of public dignity for a period of three years, with the inclusion in the State Register of persons prohibited from holding a public office or a position of public dignity,” the institution also notes.

The mayor of Calarasi Ion Olari was detained, along with the president of Calarasi district and a head of department of Calarasi district council, on the morning of January 31, 2023, by ANI officers and prosecutors of the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office (PA), in several cases, started on corruption offenses. Thus, according to the case materials, they are suspected of fraud in public procurement and other abuses, committed during 2022, the CNA announces.

On Thursday, February 2, the investigating judge of the Chisinau Court of Appeals, Ciocana headquarters, decided to remand Olari in custody for 20 days.

Ziarul de Gardă reported on how public money united Ștefan Bolea, the Socialist president of Calarasi district, Ion Olari, the mayor of Calarasi, a representative of the Action and Solidarity Party, and Veaceslav Stratan, the head of the construction department of the district council, who was also a councillor elected on the Democratic Party list in a locality in the district.

In recent years, the three, arrested and targeted in several corruption cases, have collaborated in the “implementation” of several projects in the district. In April 2022, one of the companies of the family of the mayor of Calarasi obtained, without a tender, the right to build a room for the storage of a medical waste incinerator. The price for a square metre, paid from the district budget for an unfinished building on the outside, exceeded the price of a turnkey apartment in Chisinau.

Socialist Bolea and PAS representative Olari, together with democrat Stratan, also collaborated in the process of repairing the roof of a building in Calarasi that has been inoperative for more than a decade. The work was carried out by a district councillor’s firm, while other councillors blamed the lack of transparency and the inappropriateness of repairing the roof of a dilapidated building.