Bogdan Tudorache

More than 13 million euro are allocated in the Casa Verde project (and probably partially spent) to collateral expenses such as the development of an IT platform, advertising or the salaries of the project team, according to the information provided at the request of Greenpeace Romania by AFM and the Ministry of Public Works, Development and Administration (MLPDA). The funds are used, according to information from AFM and MLPDA, for expenses such as the development of the IT application that manages the entries in the program, the information and publicity, the external financial audit, the salaries of the project management team. With these funds, AFM could have financed more than 3,000 photovoltaic installations, says Greenpeace, which accuses the slow pace of the program.

“These are approved expenses. We did not make other expenses, nor we did budget otherwise than as the contracts were approved by the Ministry of Development, by the Management Authority. We have respected the financing contracts concluded with the Management Authority,” told energynomics.ro, Andrei Iorgulescu, Director of the General Projects Directorate, Administration of the Environmental Fund (AFM).

“Prosumers have been waiting for one and a half years for this funding to reach them. This program has been plagued by promises, repeated delays and even suspected fraud, and unfortunately there is no real progress. We are surprised by the high costs of the project, we consider them unjustified considering the poor results. The AFM has to explain why it has budgeted these funds and what have been the achievements so far,” said Marian Mândru, campaign coordinator at Greenpeace Romania.

“It is necessary for those interested to be prosumers to receive financial aid as soon as possible. The AFM must work efficiently, communicate transparently with the beneficiaries and installers of photovoltaic systems. It is incomprehensible how a public authority, which manages huge budgets, has not officially communicated on this subject followed by tens of thousands of beneficiaries since November 6, 2019,” said Mândru.

However, Iorgulescu told energynomics.ro last week, that the program for installing photovoltaic panels by prosumers will start after the AFM budget is approved by the government, and now the applications are under evaluation.

“We start evaluating applications. Once we have the budget we will start publishing the lists with the approved ones. If we have the budget at the end of February – the beginning of March, we will start to publish then the lists with those approved, which can do the other formalities further. Until then, we are evaluating their requests so that we can prepare them for the budgeting,” said Iorgulescu. “The budget does not depend on us, it is approved by Government Decision,” said Iorgulescu.