The National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) yesterday formally charged with bribe taking the suspended mayor of Ramnicu Valcea, Emilian Francu, who is on remand now. According to the accusation document, at the beginning of the year the municipality of Ramnicu Valcea awarded to an architecture company a project named “Reorganisation and arrangement of the central public area of Ramnicu Valcea,” with the object of arranging a public square, an underground parking and a pedestrian passageway in this town. The cost of design services was set at approximately EUR 200,000. In January, Francu asked the manager of the architecture firm – who denounced him in this file – 10 pc of the sum, in exchange of signing all the documents which he had to sign regarding the service providing contract. Francu also demanded the same denouncer to pay the sum of RON 40,000, dissimulated as a sponsorship contract, after the payment of the last tranche for the services provided by the firm of the denouncer, DNA prosecutors say. On April 25, according to the previous agreement, the denouncer sent to the mayor the sum of RON 50,000, via an intermediary, and this is when prosecutors caught the mayor red-handed.
