The authorities did not want a show at the privatization of CFR Marfă and they have succeeded - there won't be any show, but there won't be any privatization either ... for now. None of the three offers submitted in the pre-qualification stage have qualified.

After extending the deadline for drawing up "the shortlist" from 12:00 to 16:00 (even though last Thursday, minister Relu Fenechiu was saying that it wouldn't take more than two days for evaluating the three briefs), the Ministry of Transports bluntly announced, without providing any further details, that, "following the verification and the review of the documentation for participating in the calls for tenders submitted by the potential investors for the pre-qualification procedure in the process for the privatization of SNTFM CFR Marfă, the Privatization Commission set up at the Ministry of Transports, has decided to reject the three potential bidders and to resume the procedure, according to the legal provisions".

A few days ago, minister Fenechiu himself was saying that in order to make sure that not just anybody can participate in this privatization, like it happened in the privatization process of "Oltchim", which was also a failure, the terms are quite drastic. That is why "three important companies in the industry" have submitted offers, which arrived in to the ministry in the last minutes prior to the expiration of the deadline for submitting the prequalification briefs.

The three bidders are Grup Feroviar Român (GFR), part of "Grampet" (a group controlled by Gruia Stoica), Asocierea "Transferoviar Grup (TFG) - Donau-Finanz GmbH & Co KG Austria" and American company "OmniTRAX", which the press wrote that it may have ties to businessman Cristian Burci.

Last Wednesday, Prime-Minister Victor Ponta was saying that he has asked for information about the companies which have submitted