Silviu Bian, former president of the Romanian National Agency for Labor Occupancy (ANOFM) has been sentenced to six years in prison for taking a bribe.

The decision is final and Bian turned himself in to the authorities on Thursday. He was sentenced for taking EUR 270,000 in order to facilitate the co-financing by the authority of two human resources development projects with EU funding.

Bian will server his sentence at a prison in Alba county, where he lives. He had been sentenced to nine years in jail in the initial court order in 2012, but he sentence was later reduced.

Prosecutors found that Bian took EUR 125,000 in bribes between December 2010 and October 2011 from eight employees in two projects on developing human resources, in exchange for facilitating the co-financing for the two projects.

Bian was also found incompatible by the National Integrity Agency earlier in March this year, as he was both the president of ANOFM between 2009 and 2011, and a censor with several firms.

editor@romania-insider.com