Romania’s budget was defrauded by more than EUR 2.1 billion in the last ten years, said Nicolae Vacaroiu, the president of the Court of Auditors.

The main causes were corruption, misconduct in service, and the permanent changes in legislation.

In 2014, the Government led by the former Prime Minister Victor Ponta took EUR 400 million from the investment budget and transferred it to the Government's emergency fund. It later distributed the money without any justification to municipalities and county councils through emergency ordinances, reports local Mediafax.

In recent years, the Court of Auditors has notified the prosecutors in at least 700 cases. It will send another 70 notifications to the judicial authorities. One of them refers to a case where a public institution sold a land plot with EUR 2 per sqm, although its value amounted to EUR 1,500 per sqm. The Court of Auditors sent the case to the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA).

The illegal VAT refund has also caused significant damages to the state budget in recent years.

editor@romania-insider.com