Parliamentary Committee Investigating Tourism Min To Meet On Aug 4

Orban said the Chamber of Deputies decision setting up the inquiry committee was published in the Official Journal.

He added next Tuesday the committee will establish its rules, the working schedule and the documents it will ask from the tourism minister.

The plenary of Romania’s Chamber of Deputies approved with 103 votes in favor, none against and no abstention, the setting up of a committee to investigate how tourism minister Elena Udrea spent public money.

The committee will be made up of deputies of the Social Democratic Party (PSD), the National Liberal Party (PNL) and the Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR).

In the plenary, 64 democrat liberals and four minority representatives did not vote, but ensured the necessary quorum.

The inquiry committee will include social democrats Aura Vasile, Robert Negoita, Vasile Bleotu, Dumitru Chirita and Nicolae Banicioiu, liberals Ludovic Orban, Claudiu Taga and Adriana Saftoiu and Lakatos Peter from UDMR.

Democrat liberals and the national minorities’ group did not designate a representative for the committee.

The voting in the lower house followed the request of PNL and PSD for an inquiry into the Tourism Ministry’s use of public funds and advertising contracts for the promotion of Romania as a tourist destination.

The committee will be in charge of checking the spending for the campaign "Romania, Land of Choice", for the program "Easter in Bucovina" and the attribution of the contract for the organization of the event "Light near the Sea”. It will also check the public funds spent for the concert performed by Goran Bregovic and Wedding Funeral Orchestra in Black Sea resort Mamaia.