According to an audit report, the National Fund for Regional Development was choosing its project in a defective way, as a result, projects of local importance were accepted for the implementation of which inefficient financial means have been used amounting to over €11.6 million (225.9 million lei). The Fund also chose projects involving activities that didn’t respect the criteria put by the law, spending inefficiently over 466,000 euros (9 million lei). 

At the end of January, the Court of Accounts issued a statement following a meeting of the Commission for the Control of Public Finances of the Parliament. 

The audit report mentions that the way the National Fund for Regional Development selects its projects is defective, also the Fund was using inefficiently the financial means. 

“The audit mission found that, although some actions were initiated in order to improve the legislative and normative framework in the field of regional development, they had no purpose. 

An impediment in the implementation of the regional development projects was the reduced capacities of co-financing the projects by the local public authorities, as well as the insufficient preparation of the technical documentation of the projects,” claimed the court’s statement.

The National Fund for Regional Development consists of the annual allocations from the state budget, being managed by the Ministry of Agriculture, Regional Development and the Environment, which carries out the allocation of the means, with the prior approval of the National Council for Coordination of Regional Development.