EXCLUSIVE Orban government funds for the press: Court of Auditors demands recovery of illegally paid sums / The General Secretariat of the Government employees forced to pay out of pocket

The Court of Accounts has found that the General Secretariat of the Government (SGG) made unjustified payments to certain media outlets in 2020 and 2021 as part of the Orban government’s aid in the form of the Covid information campaign, according to official documents made available to G4Media by the Court of Accounts.

Thus, the report of findings following an audit carried out in 2022 by the Court of Auditors mentions under irregularities „the making of payments in conditions of ineligibility and non-compliance with the contractual clauses and the provisions of GEO no. 63/2020 for the organization and conduct of public information campaigns in the context of the epidemiological situation caused by the spread of COVID-19”.

This is an information campaign launched by the Orban government in the middle of the electoral campaign for the local elections and the 2022 parliamentary elections. The campaign cost more than 180 million lei and involved paying the SGG directly to broadcast spots informing the population about wearing a protective mask.

The Court of Auditors carried out checks on a sample of contracts and invoices. „The estimated amount of the deviation found is 695,319.47 lei, representing both the unjustified advances made in due time and the amounts identified as undue as a result of non-compliance with contractual provisions,” the Court of Auditors’ report states.

According to G4Media information, several employees of the General Secretariat of the Government are charged with certain amounts of money after signing official documents. The SGG declined to answer a question from G4Media on the matter, saying that „the data requested is in the category of information not yet validated with regard to the implementation of recommended measures to be subject to public disclosure”.

The Court of Auditors states in the mentioned minutes that „it was found that the settlement of invoices issued by media service providers was carried out without ensuring the verification of the consistency between the supporting documents attached to the invoices and the contractual provisions (duration of validity of the contract/additional act, subject matter of the contract, period of the public information campaign), which led to the payment of the value of the services in question being approved on the basis of the supporting documentation submitted by the RDA and without verifying whether the invoiced services were actually provided under the contractual terms and conditions”.

„In so doing, expenditure was unlawfully committed, liquidated, authorised and paid from the funds allocated. It was found that, although the operations presented for approval did not meet the conditions of legality, regularity and destination of the budget appropriations for the granting of the preventive financial control visa, they were approved by the persons designated to exercise the CFPP visa,” the report also states.

Background. The duration of the campaign was initially set for a period of 4 months, starting 15 May 2020, but was extended until the end of 2020.

The total payments made by the SGG were about 175 million lei – money paid from the state budget into the accounts of TVs, newspapers, radios and media websites. G4Media is one of the few media outlets to have refused government money, along with Recorder.ro, Rise Project, RFI Romania, Republica, Paginademedia and Edupedu.

The Orban government’s termination of media contracts coincided with the softening of the critical tone of many media outlets towards the executive, the PNL and President Klaus Iohannis. Contracts were signed with most central editorial offices and a few local publications, and the campaign covered the period from June to December 2020, the exact period of the election campaign.

G4Media revealed that after the first instalments of money had been paid, the absolute champion of money received from the government was the media trust founded by Dan Voiculescu, with 14.7 million lei for Antena 1, Antena 3 and Radio Zu. It should be noted that the company Antena TV Group SA, which received 9.3 million lei, was convicted of extortion in 2017.

The next biggest recipient of government money was Kanal D (Dogan Media Inernational SA) – with 7.5 million lei, while Pro TV received 3.4 million lei.

An Economedia analysis shows that the companies operating Romania’s largest TV stations and media sites were not greatly affected by the crisis, on the contrary, most of them increased their business and profits in 2020 compared to 2019. In addition, most also received money from the government, even though their business was already doing well. By comparison, the truly closed firms, such as those in HoReCa, have been waiting for their money for over a year.

Translated