Darău requested the DNA test after discovering that the state had paid millions of lei for tourist albums that

The interim Minister of Economy, Digitalization, Entrepreneurship and Tourism, Irineu Darău, announced that he has initiated a DNA investigation after the institution's control body found that the state paid 2.6 million lei for 75,000 tourist promotion albums, 41,000 of which have never reached the institution's warehouses, and the company that printed them continues to sell them. "That is why there is fear: every day, week, and month during the government's term we discover things and, finally, those responsible will have to answer for them. The Romanian state paid 2.6 million lei for 75,000 tourist promotion albums. Almost 41,000 of them have never reached the institution's warehouses, and the company that printed them continues to sell them," wrote Irineu Darău on Facebook on Tuesday. He specifies that this situation was discovered by the Minister's Control Body. "We initiated a complaint to the National Anticorruption Directorate so that the competent institutions investigate these facts and establish potential responsibilities. The story begins in 2006, when the National Authority for Tourism concluded a contract for 2,625,000 lei for 75,000 bilingual promotion albums of the Vesel Cemetery in Săpânța. The state paid the invoice in full, but only 34,395 copies reached the institution's warehouses," the interim minister specifies. Darău explains that the remaining 40,605 albums, worth over 1.4 million lei, remained with the private company that produced them. "20 years have passed, the company entered bankruptcy/insolvency proceedings, and the situation was not clarified. Moreover, the Control Body found that the albums are still offered for sale online, at the price of 60 lei each," Darău further communicated. He specifies that the inspections revealed much broader problems in the management of tourist promotion materials acquired in the last two decades. "Since 2017, the Court of Accounts found the existence of inventories with no movement or slow movement, worth over 4 million lei. We are talking about hundreds of thousands of maps, brochures, and albums purchased with public money that remained in storage for years. The Court of Accounts established measures that had to be fulfilled by January 2018. It is October 2026, and the measure is still not implemented," the USR minister argues. According to him, in the meantime, the materials have deteriorated, inventory records have remained incomplete, and some of the stocks stored in the basement of a building were severely damaged in January of this year due to massive water infiltration. "That is why, in addition to the DNA investigation, we have established clear deadlines for completing the inventory, correcting accounting records, and introducing handover-receipt procedures to prevent the repetition of these situations. The problems must be clarified, the measures must be implemented, and where there are suspicions of a violation of the law, the competent institutions must do their job. Public money does not belong to the ministries or those who lead them," Darău further wrote on Facebook. Editor: B.E.