The administration of the Environmental Fund (AFM) is looking for “fast and efficient solutions in order to solve the registration of individuals”, the president of AFM, Lorand Fulop, stated on Facebook. The AFM’s IT application for enrolling prosumers in the subsidy program for small solar projects for self-consumption collapsed immediately after its launch on Wednesday, for technical reasons. Tough criticism followed from the main players in the market but also from the Minister of Environment, Tanczos Barna.
Lorand Fulop said that the institution has 250 employees, and “when the IT service says that everything will be fine, I have to believe them” and that his resignation is not a solution, the AFM presidents being the only ones held accountable when things go awry.
“The problem is much deeper than what my resignation can solve … In the end, 6 presidents changed in 2 years, but everything else remained the same: the application, the employees, the contracts”, Fulop wrote on Facebook.
He later stated that he is considering the possibility that all the documents submitted by the installers until December 22 will be uploaded on the site, in January 2022.
“We assure you that we are trying to identify quick and efficient solutions in order to solve the registration of individuals, including by taking into account some centralizers comprising individuals who have taken steps according to the Financing Guide, until December 22.
We are also analyzing a way to allow the uploading, during January, of all the documentation submitted to the installers until December 22, through a procedure that will be communicated later,” Fulop also wrote on Facebook on Thursday.
The Employers’ Organization of Renewable Energy Producers in Romania – Patres has asked the authorities to urgently resume the program, which closed, just like two years ago, a few minutes after its launch, for technical reasons. Subsequently, also on Wednesday, an unsuccessful attempt was made to restart the program.
“Incredible, but true! What is happening at the Administration of the Environmental Fund, the state institution that has the responsibility to support Prosumers in Romania, is inadmissible. The long-awaited day of the launch of the second session of the Green House Photovoltaic Program was left with the suspension of registrations from the first hours. There was even a record – the suspension of registrations twice a day, on the nerves and money of the citizens that applied, as well as of the installers,” said Patres officials.
In turn, the Minister of Environment stated that “the way in which the Administration of the Environment Fund managed today’s launch of the Green House Photovoltaic program is unacceptable.”
“There is no excuse for the unforgivable way things went and for the treatment to which hundreds of economic agents and thousands of citizens have been subjected today. AFM is an institution under the coordination of MMAP and, as Minister, I have a control over the development of this program. Apologies are not enough! I also asked the AFM management to present a solution by tomorrow morning in view of the way in which the prepared files will be submitted and evaluated, so that the submitted work will not be wasted,” said Tanczos Barna, Minister of Environment (MMAP).
