A company accuses a giant purchase in Piedone’s City Hall: “The de facto leader of the company was a councilor in the city hall”

Appeal to the CNSC after the company of Piedone’s PUSL party colleague, former police officer convicted for corruption Ionel Tucmuruz, won a new 40 million euro contract for security in Sector 5.

The company Tetra Sistems Guards contested, at the National Council for the Resolution of Appeals (CNSC), the tender through which an association led by Magic Star Security won the contract for the protection of Sector 5, worth 40 million euros.

Party ties and subordination Piedone – Tucmuruz

The contesting firm was disqualified during the proceedings. The company came up with the approach from the CNSC after several press disclosures showed that the de facto head of the company is Ionel Tucmuruz.

A HotNews.ro investigation published on April 5, 2024 presented Ionel Tucmuruz and his family’s business: Magic Star Security. The security company Magic Star took contracts of 12 million euros with the City Hall of Sector 5 after Cristian Popescu Piedone became mayor.

A former convicted policeman, Tucmuruz is a PUSL colleague of mayor Piedone and close to the mayor.

As Newsweek later showed, Tucmuruz was even an employee of the Sector 5 City Hall, as the mayor’s personal advisor.

Then, G4Media wrote that an association led by the same Magic Star Security won a new giant contract, worth 201 million lei (40 million euros).

The auction was conducted offline, not through SEAP, but directly on the website of the Sector 5 City Hall, and Tetra Sistems Guards and another participating company were disqualified. What happened in the last few days?

On April 19, 2024, the security company Tetra Sistems Guards SRL contested, at the National Council for the Resolution of Appeals (CNSC), a giant purchase of 40 million euros, won by an association led by the company Magic Star Security.

Tetra was among those disqualified in the offline procedure, organized on the website of the Sector 5 City Hall, with the object of security in the sector led by the mayor Cristian Popescu Piedone.

The CNSC has opened file 1310/2024, in which, so far, several points of view have been received from Magic Star Security and the Sector 5 City Hall.

HotNews asked Tetra Guards Sistems several questions. Why did they dispute the purchase? “The appeal is formulated and filed against the illegal awarding of the framework agreement for security services in Sector 5,” reads Tetra Guard’s response to HotNews.

The company makes several arguments. “The main reason lies in the fact that Mr. Ionel Tucmuruz, the de facto leader of MAGIC STAR SECURITY SRL during the organization, start-up and implementation (stage of submission of offers, opening stage, evaluation of qualification documents, technical and financial evaluation) of the procedure of procurement performed the position of Personal Advisor to the Mayor of Sector 5 of the Municipality of Bucharest with an individual employment contract. He is also the secretary of the PUSL party, which includes the Mayor of Sector 5, the Public Administrator and one of the Deputy Mayors of Sector 5”, writes Tetra Guard.

What does the public procurement law say?

The company claims that the Sector 5 City Hall violated several articles of Law 98/2006 on public procurement. Among these:

“Article 59: For the purposes of this law, conflict of interest means any situation in which members of the staff of the contracting authority or of a procurement service provider acting on behalf of the contracting authority, who are involved in carrying out the award procedure or that can influence its result, have, directly or indirectly, a financial, economic or other personal interest, which could be perceived as an element that compromises their impartiality or independence in the context of the award procedure.

Article 60: (1) Any situations that could lead to the emergence of a conflict of interests within the meaning of art. 59, such as the following, regulated by way of example:

…

d)the situation in which the individual tenderer/the associated bidder/the candidate/proposed subcontractor/supporting third party is a member of the board of directors/management or supervisory body and/or has significant shareholders or associates persons who are husband/wiferelative or next of kin up to the second degree including those who are in commercial relations with people with decision-making functions within the contracting authority or of the procurement service provider involved in the award procedure; “

The underlines belong to Tetra Guard.

What other reasons does the disqualified company cite?

That’s not the only reason the company says it contested the bid. Others include:

• “the contracting authority rejected the subscription offer as non-compliant on the grounds that certain requested documents are “missing” from the submitted documents, i.e. 1600 pages – despite the fact that they were sent the first time when the offers were submitted and the second time following a request for clarification” .
• The fact that the framework agreement was to be concluded with 5 participants, but all the others were disqualified – it should be noted that, annually, re-offers take place, “and the bidder who re-offers the lowest price will provide the service”.

Asked why they believe that this giant auction was carried out offline, Tetra Guards emphasized that the method is stipulated in the law.

But, at the same time, according to the company, “We believe that by carrying out an offline procedure it is much easier to get rid of any unwanted competitors by disqualifying them for various reasons, namely evaluation with several measures or comparison standards (according to desire/interest ), loss of documents, changes to documents, additions to documents, etc., thus the principles provided by art. 2 paragraph 2 transparency, non-discrimination, equal treatment from Law no. 98/2016”.

What Tucmuruz said to HotNews.ro

On April 5, 2024, HotNews.ro presented the relationship between mayor Piedone and Ionel Tucmuruz, the deputy general secretary of the party led by the mayor, PUSL.

Ionel Tucmuruz, former deputy of the 14th Police Department in the Capital, was sentenced in 2018 to 2 years and 6 months in prison for influence peddling, a crime of corruption, with the suspension of the execution of the sentence.

In 2010, Tucmuruz founded the security company Magic Star Security. When the criminal problems arose, “but because of my health problems,” he claims, the firm was transferred to his wife’s name.

Asked if he was Piedone’s adviser, he denied it, saying he was only unofficially named as such. Newsweek later presented a document showing that he was actually an employee of the Sector 5 City Hall as a councillor.

HotNews showed that Tucmuruz’s family companies won similar contracts when Piedone was mayor of Sector 4.