The Minister of Environment, Waters and Forests, Diana Buzoianu, indicates that there is currently a system through which the members of the Board of Directors of Romsilva can determine their own compensation, while the minister only advises and announces that he will propose an urgent amendment to the legislation.

“We have a law that basically forces you to appoint the only candidate registered, if some minimal conditions are met. We have a procedure that allows people who have been sent to court to cross the starting line without any legal barrier. And we have a system through which the members of the Council can set their own compensation, while the minister only signs and approves. If this is not an invitation to abuse, then I don’t know what is. There is an urgent need for a reform of the governance of state-owned companies. The Romsilva case clearly shows that the current legislation does not protect the public interest and even forces controversial appointments. I will argue the real need for these changes to be adopted as quickly as possible in the working group that was formed on the topic of the reform of the CAs,” said Buzoianu, quoted in a statement quoted by Agerpres.

According to the cited press release, the deficiencies reported have direct and visible effects, such as: persons accused in criminal cases can pass the selection procedure without any legal obstacle, because there are no integrity criteria that would lower the scores in the selection; in certain cases, a single candidate applies for a position on the Board of Directors and, although it is a clear violation of the idea of competition, the minister is obliged by law to appoint the sole candidate, without the possibility of canceling the competition for that position and resuming the competition.

“Although at the beginning of the term, the allowances are set by the minister, later the allowances are subsequently established by the remuneration committee formed by the members of the Board of Directors, which means that they can decide their own remuneration, the minister only having the role of approving the new allowance. The ministry’s representatives on the Boards of Directors cannot vote according to an explicit mandate from the minister, which makes it impossible for the tutelary authority to intervene in decisions with a major impact on the company. According to the law, they consult with the ministry’s representatives, but they do not have a mandatory written mandate to follow, although formally, on paper, they represent the ministry,” the ministry mentions.

In this context, among the changes that the Ministry of Environment will propose within the Interministerial Working Group for the reform of state-owned companies, are: the introduction of integrity criteria that would allow the derating or elimination of indicted or prosecuted candidates; the possibility of resuming the selection procedure when there is no real competition, in order to avoid the automatic designation of the only registered candidate; establishing the level of compensation exclusively through the mandate contract, by the head of the guardianship authority, not by the remuneration committee formed by the people who receive this compensation; granting a concrete mandate from the minister for the ministry’s representatives on the Boards of Directors, so that the guardianship authority can exercise real control.