Will the Court of Accounts check private companies?

The control duties of the Court of Accounts could be extended to the trading companies in which the State contributed at least 5% in the share capital, to the companies that fail to pay their financial obligations to the state, as well as to every privatisation conducted by the Privatisation Authority (APAPS).

These stipulations are included in the draft for modifying the law on the organisation of the Court of Accounts, originated by a group of Party of Social Democracy (PDSR) leaders: aerban Mihailescu, Acsinte Gaspar, Viorel Hrebenciuc.

The draft generated a rather heated debate in the Budget-Finance Committee within the Chamber of Deputies on Wednesday, as the PNL (National Liberal Party), PD (Democrat Party) and UDMR (Democratic Union of Magyars in Romania) MPs had several objections to make.

The Liberals do not agree with the provision enabling the Court of Accounts to perform controls in the private sector. Liberal leader Valeriu Stoica feels this could simply freeze the sector and discourage investors.

In spite of the Liberals’ opposition, the Budget-Finance Committee decided to expand control of the Court of Accounts to the trading companies in which the state holds at least 5% in the share capital.

“The White Book of governance taken over by PDSR showed the former governing officials set out to control and hunt for sparrows not for elephants,” was one of the arguments of the committee chairman, PDSR deputy Florin Georgescu.

“But this is just a matter of competencies overlapping,” retorted Liberal representative Eugen Nicolaescu.

Georgescu quickly answered, “It is rather a kind of control supervision, gentlemen. Just as the man checking the train tickets, he’s got supervisors, too.” The debate was ended by the vote that settled things in PDSR’s favour.

The controls to the above-mentioned trading companies will be carried out along with representatives of the competent institutions in the field subjected to control. The decision was made by the deputies of the specialised parliamentary commission and will be possible to enforce when the law comes into effect.

Court of Accounts’ control to every privatisation conducted by the Privatisation Authority will reportedly target privatisation procedures and the manner in which APAPS made sure the provisions in the privatisation contracts were observed.

At the same time, the Court of Accounts will also check the budget of the Chamber of Deputies, of the Senate, of the Presidential Administration and of the Government, which institutions have never had to report to the Court of Accounts until now.