Colas affair: Why did the supervisor not say anything?

In the hottest infrastructure deal of 2011, Colas’ failure on Cernavodă-Medgidia section, the role of the supervisor of construction works, namely the company with public funds to control the building pace and report any problem to the beneficiary, namely the state, has not been brought under discussion.

Search won with a 7.3m lei (1.74m euros) bid the supervising of the entire Cernavodă-Constanța section, but provided the associated services only for a four-month period, with the construction contract for Cernavodă-Medgidia being terminated in the meantime.

“As long as there is a suit between Colas builder and the beneficiary of works, from our position of independent engineer, according to confidentiality clauses included in our contract, we do not have the right to issue a public opinion on these problems,” Mihaela Drăghici, a communication director with Search, told ZF.

Previously, for two years, supervision was conducted internally, by the Constanța department of CNADNR, namely by the beneficiary itself.

That was because the initial tender for the supervision contract, when Romanian company Consitrans was declared as winner, was challenged in court by Search itself, controlled by businessman Michael Stanciu, which won and was finally appointed as supervisor.