Pwr Plant Turceni GM, Investigated For Abuse Of Office, Resigns

"In the preventive arrest request, prosecutors claim that, as general manager, I might influence witnesses or close new contracts for covering with papers the damage they consider I’ve done. I decided to resign in order to prove them things are not like that,” Cristea stated.

Cristea was detained for 24 hours last Tuesday, alongside with other company’s managers for abuse of office, at the order of the anticorruption prosecutors in Targu Jiu, southern Romania.

Romanian prosecutors proposed last Wednesday the placing under preventive arrest of Cristea, which was appealed and will be retried in the following days.

Marian Motocu, the plant’s production manager, will be interim manager during Cristea’s investigation.

Ten days ago, the anti-corruption prosecutors put under distraint part of Dumitru Cristea’s wealth.

Cristea is currently investigated for abuse of office, next to other directors with Turceni power plant.

They are under investigations for having allegedly bought, from a Medias-based company, equipments at over-evaluated prices, causing a prejudice of 800,000 lei (EUR1=RON3.7938), official sources said.

The name of general manager in Turceni has been recently mentioned after his wife specified in her wealth statement that Cristea received in June an annual bonus of RON149,000.

Narcisa Cristea, the economic manager of Targu Jiu City Hall in south Romania, wrote end-October in her wealth statement that Dumitru Cristea has obtained net salaries of around RON124,000 between June 2007, when he was appointed the general manager of Turceni power plant, and June 2008.

Narcisa Cristea’s statement also mentions several lands and buildings bought, leased or inherited, several bank deposits totaling RON465,000 and EUR15,000, together with four agricultural lands and three inside-city lands in Targu Jiu town.