The Minister of Energy Virgil Popescu announced that the officials of the Control Body have completed the preliminary report on the tragedy at the Jilț Sud Quarry, in which three people died. At the same time, Popescu requested the resignation of the president of the Directorate of the Oltenia Energy Complex, Daniel Burlan, and of Marius Negru, a member of the CE Oltenia Directorate, according to news.ro.
Previously, several prominent members of the PSD requested the resignation of the Minister of Energy, Virgil Popescu, whom they accuse of incompetence, in the context of the Jilț-Sud accident.
“The preliminary report of the Control Body of the Ministry of Energy has been completed and I would like to present the deficiencies in the activity of CE Oltenia as well as some of the measures that will be taken. The preliminary report of the Control Body will be sent to the Oltenia CE management so that it can be put into practice. Responsibilities in the tragic accident that occurred on January 17, 2023 in the Jilț Sud Quarry are being clarified by the criminal investigation bodies. We do not do criminal investigation. We are conducting an administrative investigation and certainly the judicial investigation regarding the causes of the accident and everything that followed will benefit from all the support of the Ministry of Energy and including this report that we will make available. I want to emphasize this difference between this criminal investigation and the administrative investigation,” stated Popescu.
“Following the preliminary report and all the information I received recently in Târgu Jiu, I would like to present you the following measures. I will request or even now I do request and also in writing, through the control report, to the Supervisory Council of CE Oltenia the release from the position of president of the general directorate, general director and members of the directorate of the last two who were part of the old directorate, respectively of Mr. Daniel Burlan and Marius Negru. Endangering the lives of employees who come to work every day to earn a living is unacceptable. Unfortunately, this happened at CE Oltenia and the use of machines with an age, some of them, of over 40 years is inadmissible. Their degree of wear, likewise, is according to the lifespan. None of the people found responsible will be omitted from the report. From an administrative point of view, we will continue to expand the control regarding all purchases from CE Oltenia that go to the coal mining quarries. We want to see exactly what happened. We want to see why the access roads to the quarry were not in good conditions,” added Virgil Popescu.
He also said that he requested the change of the commercial director in charge of procurement, the one responsible for road rehabilitation, as well as the identification of the people responsible for the procurement specifications.