The Minister of Energy, Sebastian Burduja, announced that he will not sign the discharge (revenue and expenditure budgets) for companies subordinate to the ministry if they do not comply with the principles of efficiency such as reducing management positions or salary expenses.

“For two weeks, I have sent an address to all the companies in the portfolio, whether we are majority shareholders or 100%, and to the utilities, and I have asked them for a few things. To reduce the number of management positions; I have also indicated a target, up to 30%. To reduce salary expenses, indicating a percentage of 20%, especially for TESA personnel. In energy, there are large companies, such as Complexul Energetic Oltenia, where we do not want to fire the miners who work in quarries or the engineers who work in thermal power plants. But there is room to reduce the administrative staff: human resources, legal, communication, etc.,” the Minister of Energy said on Sunday at Digi24, according to Agerpres.

He also indicated that he had asked companies to reduce sponsorship expenses, pointing out that there is a company that spent 16 million lei last year on sponsorships. The Minister claimed that the company in question was Hidroelectrica and specified, however, that he “did not want to bring them to the table” because the people there do their job “quite well.”

“We, as shareholders, have the leverage to impose this and I have communicated to these companies that I will not sign their income and expenditure budgets until they comply with these efficiency principles. At the company level, we would like to save a billion lei as a result of these measures,” Burduja explained.

Moreover, the relevant minister announced that in about two months, the Ministry of Energy website will be able to analyze data related to companies subordinate to the institution.

“We are working on a transparency portal and I think it will be a first. On the Ministry of Energy website, in a month and a half to two months, you will be able to enter, select the company and see there exactly what expenses they have, what bonuses they have, what contracts the management has, asset declarations, purchase contracts, all sponsorships,” Burduja also said.