The war between Timiș County Council – Alin Nica and Timiș Prefecture – Mihai Ritivoiu experienced a new episode on Monday. The first accused the government’s representation in the territory of being the “PSD Prefecture” and of delaying the process in which it contested the allocation of money from the funds for balancing local budgets, respectively of the amounts distributed for local road repairs, using the dispute in court as and political weapon.
The scandal began when the CJT plenum distributed the money for balancing to many town halls led by liberal administrations, reasoning that it was about … balancing, after similar amounts, but distributed by the government, would have reached the PSD town halls. The Timiș prefecture contested the way the money was distributed, “pushed” by the requests of PSD county councilors. Now, Nica says that the open trial has been postponed, because the Prefecture’s representatives would not have appeared at the trial. The town halls are in danger of running out of funds, no more money to pay electricity, salaries, says Nica.
“Last week we had a deadline in that process with the prefecture, which contested the decision of the County Council, the decisions of the County Council to allocate those amounts to the town halls and to the County Council regarding the communal and county roads, respectively to the town halls, in order to balance the local budgets. Well, I noticed with unpleasant surprise that the PSD Prefecture, the PSD prefect, chooses to boycott this process by not showing up at last week’s deadline. Going along this line, the pressure on the mayors for electoral purposes, in order to obtain the vote for the PSD candidate in the June 9 elections, for the County Council is an unacceptable issue from my point of view. It shows a fantastic desperation on the part of the PSD. To put dozens and dozens of communities in the situation of becoming insolvent, which depends on this money coming from the County Council, seems to me a crime against the interests of these local communities and to blackmail with this money or with alleged supplements certain mayors again seem to me to be at the limit of common sense, to be very elegant compared to those from the PSD.
But we also discussed this weekend and I will discuss this week with fellow mayors what solutions we can have in mind so that we can unblock this situation or somewhat speed up the trial of this process and not endanger the budget executions at the level of administrative-territorial units” , according to the head of the CJT.
The only lifeline to support the cash-strapped town halls is the CJT’s reserve fund. “We have the option of allocation where there are significant emergencies from our emergency fund for certain town halls, but obviously, this emergency fund is not set up for this kind of allocation, because it is not like the Government, or we also have the option of revoking the decision , if there is this request from the mayors and there is obviously political consensus at the level of the political groups, we are certainly thinking about how we can remove the chestnuts from the fire thrown by those from the PSD by irresponsibly contesting these two decisions of the County Council”, concluded Nica .
The next term in the processes is on June 13, i.e. after the local elections. So the financial problems can get worse”, says Nica.
The Prefect of Timiș reacts
The problems complained about by Nica are non-existent, showing despair, says Mihai Ritivoiu, the prefect of Timiș, who sends her a reply under the title “Fantastic despair? It will be, but not with me”.
There are other reasons for the postponement, mentions Ritivoiu, who emphasizes that in the documentation submitted to the court he requested that the process continue, even if the representatives of the Prefecture are not present.
“The judgment of the case was postponed to June 13, 2024, because the procedure for communicating requests for intervention was not fulfilled. The reason is related to the non-fulfilment of all procedural forms, in the sense that interventions were made in the process by other municipalities and not all documents were sent to all parties. I did not send a representative to the trial because it was obvious that it would be delayed, the procedure not having been completed. But even without a representative of the Prefecture it would have been judged because in the action filed by the Prefecture, through which I attacked the decisions of the County Council, I clearly specified that we request a trial also in absentia after the last page of my action, where this is clearly visible . So the process can take place even in our absence. Here is the proof of Mr. Nica’s embarrassing lie and accusation”, according to Ritivoiu.
Of course, he also proposes a solution to the “neighbor” from the Administrative Palace: cancel the approved decision and vote for a new one, which also contains the reasons for the decision to share the money. In fact, initially the stake was different, that is, the money should also reach the… less liberal town halls.
