RFU Aurora
Corinești, Limbo
16 May 2025
Corruption, fraud and embezzlement. How the leaderships imposed by PROLIB works under the current administration and hopes for the future.
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From 2004 until the end of last year, the Prosperity Party and the Alliance for Liberty, known as PROLIB, held power in the country, and since then several corruption cases have come to light, especially since the installment of the new government. The problem still exists, but hope remains among the population.
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Money stolen from the national bank
In 2006, around Б 1.5 billion was embezzled from the National Bank’s reserves. The governor at the time, Henry Pren, declared after the information appeared in the press that the reserves had been mismanaged and resigned from his position, at the request of Prime Minister Ran Pristine, only to be appointed to head the Federal Department of Economy, Finance and Tourism.
The press at the time reported that Pren’s predecessor at the finance ministry, Mihai Dumitrache, a former senator from the Prosperity Party, had been appointed in his place.
The case was investigated by the General Anti-Corruption Commission, but closed in 2010, the motivation being that the reserve funds had been mismanaged. In 2015, Renate Mircova, the new anti-corruption prosecutor-general, reopened the case, demanding the judicial control of Pren and Pristine, at that time the president of the senate and the prime minister, respectively. Their resignation was demanded by both President Petru Grigorescu and some citizens, who took to the streets to protest against the draft law 407/2015 that would have endangered the independence of the judiciary in the country, as well as the pressure put on Mircova to resign. Finally, in January 2016, the anti-corruption prosecutor-general was forced to resign.
Although Law 407/2015 passed the parliament’s vote in early 2016, the president refused to promulgate the law, the government decided to adopt the law by issuing emergency ordinance 11/2016. This decision triggered the largest protests in the country since the anti-ligarchist revolution of 1984.
In 2025, Henry Pren was arrested, tried and sentenced to 17 years in prison, the same sentence later received by Ran Pristine and Mihai Dumitrache. Pristine has been considered a fugitive since April 12 and is wanted internationally, suspected of having fled to the Great Morstaybishlia, where he owns a villa.
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Nepotism instead of environmental protection
However, the case of stolen reserves is not the only one. Another controversy was that of the former general director of Limsilva, Ionel Caramitru, accused of having appointed his brother-in-law as director of the Northwest Islands National Park, with the authorization of the Minister of the Environment of Fomalhaut, Conrad Weber, a member of the Thaerist Democratic Union.
Caramitru allegedly proposed the appointment of his brother-in-law to Weber in exchange for putting the latter at the head of the PROLIB lists for the 2020 legislative elections. The Chancellor of Fomalhaut at the time was Bertha Neumann, who still holds this position.
Ionel Caramitru was a senator for Orion from the Alliance for Liberty and was appointed director general of Limsilva in 2017, resigning in 2024 to be able to run for a new seat in parliament. During the period in which Caramitru was at the helm of the institution, over 86.1 million cubic meters of wood were illegally cut, according to estimates made by environmental NGOs.
The affected regions include protected areas, most of which are in the north of the country, where parts of the Apele Reci Virgin Forest and the Grivineasca Forest disappeared in just one week. Another notorious example is the Pietroasele Wetland National Park, where Limsilva turned a blind eye to poaching and illegal logging in the area, although much of the park is under strict protection.
The case was investigated by the General Anticorruption Commission earlier this year, and Ionel Caramitru, his brother-in-law, and Conrad Weber were sentenced to 10 years in prison.
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Problems persist, even after the corrupt leave
The year 2024 brought several surprises on the political front. In the July elections, a candidate from the Socialist Workers’ Party won the presidency for the first time. In September, the surprise was repeated after PROLIB won only 10% of the citizens’ votes in the parliamentary elections. And in 2025, the alliance would suffer more after the coalition between the Civic Union, the Socialists and the Greens broke up, losing power in all the anticipated regional elections.
However, it seems that reform is a difficult thing, because most of the federal or regional companies and institutions are led by current or former members of PROLIB. Some examples are: the Limboese Post, Disprogaz, Hidroprod, Limsilva and the National Health Insurance Agency.
In the case of Hidroprod, the current director of Hidroprod FO is a former member of the Landtag from the Thaerist Democratic Union, appointed by Bertha Neumann. He proposed the construction of a reservoir on the territory of the Northwest Islands National Park, which unfortunately was approved by the regional government last week, but which has little chance of being started or financed.
Another thing to mention is the fact that Elena Grigore, former Federal Department of Development, Energy, Infrastructure and Transport between 2016-2022 and current director of Disprogaz, was the one who proposed putting the company on the stock exchange and, later, reducing the state-owned shares from 85% to 61%. However, if we analyze the list of private shareholders of Disprogaz, among them is Gazoduct S.A., a company owned by her husband, Marian Grigore, headquartered in Orpheus (Orfeu), ST.
Gazoduct S.A. is described as a company specialized in the distribution of bottled gas in rural areas. It is currently the second largest seller of gas cylinders at the federal level, earning up to Б 1.8 billion annually. The company has been investigated several times by the Consumer Protection Agency and the Federal Emergency Inspectorate for irregularities in gas cylinders, after several reports of methane gas leaks from inside them.
The company still has an operating license to this day and is still led by Marian Grigore.
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What’s next?
Although these problems are well-known, the government still cannot take the necessary measures to completely dismantle the corruption circles from the time of the PROLIB governments because it does not have support in all regions of the country, according to Prime Minister Mihaela Reșcupeanu.
But hope that change will happen has not died. Many people told us that they believe in the new government and that they hope that the problem of systemic corruption will be a thing of the past.
Person 1: “I don’t know if I’ll see the time when they won’t be corrupt anymore, but I hope it comes… At least the youth will get to experience it.”
Person 2: “Since last year, I’ve felt such a changed atmosphere around me. It’s like I don’t have the stress of tomorrow anymore.”
Person 3: “I saw the revolution of '84, I lived through the IFTAL and now I’m retired. I haven’t seen such peace in the country for 40 or so years. Yes, there are still small crooks, but at least they’re caught. Before, I didn’t even know about them.”
Person 4: “I think the current government is that breath of fresh air that we all needed. I mean, I see that people have woken up and stopped voting for the same corrupt people.”
Since 1992, trust in the government has fallen from 53% to 42% in 2010, then to 27% in 2020. However, since 2024, the percentage of people who trust state institutions has increased from 30% in 2024 to 74% last month. Political experts say that although the current government has certain problems to overcome, such as corruption and poverty, the measures adopted so far have managed to gain the trust of a large part of the population.
