Cristina Guseth, director of Freedom House Romania, speaks in an interview granted to ZIUA de Constanta Newspaper, about the most exposed to corruption areas in public procurement and about the media's role in identifying irregularities in procurement.

Freedom House Romania is currently carrying a transnational project named "Combating crime in public procurement. An operational approach ". It is a very ambitious project, but to what extent do you think it will succeed to increase the level of specialization in combating fraud?

First of all, it is the first project to put together 11 public institutions and 6 NGO’s and associations with relevant experience. Cases of procurement fraud are presented over 14 seminars, attended by prosecutors, judges for criminal and administrative law and operative officers. The result will be that more than 350 magistrates and operative officers will be trained in this project.

The project is addressed in a complete and complex manner: on the one hand, in terms of regulatory and monitoring administrative institutions, on the other hand, the prospect of inquiry, investigation, and the third approach is the European perspective. From this point of view, it is intended to harmonize the procedures and good practice examples from EU countries such as France, Germany, Italy and Portugal.

There are also practical exercises in groups of police officers, prosecutors and judges to simulate chain investigation and trial of issues relating to procurement fraud.

What are the areas most exposed to corruption and on which ones will you focus more on this project?

Infrastructure and European funds.

Can we talk about a broad national phenomenon in terms of preferential directing of public funds as a result of less transparent auctions?

Yes, no doubt. And the last MCV re