Anti-corruption prosecutors on Saturday detained Sorina Pintea, a former health minister, on suspicion that she took bribes worth about 35,000 euros in exchange for a public procurement contract.
Pintea, who is manager of the Baia Mare Emergency Hospital, was brought to Bucharest for questioning early Saturday where she was detained for 24 hours.
She was caught in a sting operation at the hospital on Friday. Prosecutors allegedly caught her as she took 120,000 lei in her office. They stayed in her office for several hours and took away documents.
Anti-corruption prosecutors said she is suspected of taking bribes of 10,000 euros and 120,000 lei (25,000 euros) in two installments from an intermediary from December 2019-February 2020.
The kickback represented 7% of the value of a contract for renovating a cardiovascular unit at the hospital, prosecutors said in a statement.
They said she is being investigated for “taking repeated bribes.”
There was no reaction from Pintea, a Social Democrat who was health minister from January 2018 to October 2019. Her son said the informant said bribes were also paid to a former education minister.
Last year, she was accused of intimidating a non-governmental organization that raised 26 million euros for a pediatric cancer hospital. She said the funds that were raised over four years should be handed to the state.
When she was minister, Pintea sent a team of undercover detectives to Romanian hospitals last year to check out whether medics and nurses are demanding or accepting bribes.
The project was part of an anti-corruption drive launched to crack down on kickbacks in the country’s hospitals. Pintea said that 14 people had been hired to vet the health system.
A court will rule later whether she should be arrested for 30 days.
[…] Romanian ex-health minister detained on suspicion of taking “repeated bribes” Facebook Twitter Pinterest WhatsApp Articolul precedentConfuzie în Tunis după dublul atac sinucigaş împotriva Ambasadei Statelor Unite Alison MutlerAlison Mutler este o jurnalistă britanică cu 30 de ani de experiență. A debutat în timpul Revoluției anti-comuniste din România pentru postul de televiziune britanic ITV. După căderea comunismului, s-a mutat în România și a lucrat ca freelancer pentru Daily Telegraph, BBC și UPI. A urmat o perioadă de 25 de ani în funcția de corespondent-șef pentru agenția de presă The Associated Press, relatând despre România, Moldova și ocazional despre Bulgaria. Mai colaborează cu Radio Europa Liberă, Coda Story și Euronews. Lucrează la universul.net, secția engleză. Contul ei de Twitter este @AlisoNJMutler (https://twitter.com/AlisoNJMutler). var block_td_uid_5_5e625858e4db3 = new tdBlock(); block_td_uid_5_5e625858e4db3.id = "td_uid_5_5e625858e4db3"; block_td_uid_5_5e625858e4db3.atts = '{"limit":3,"ajax_pagination":"next_prev","live_filter":"cur_post_same_categories","td_ajax_filter_type":"td_custom_related","class":"td_uid_5_5e625858e4db3_rand","td_column_number":3,"live_filter_cur_post_id":46701,"live_filter_cur_post_author":"10","block_template_id":"","header_color":"","ajax_pagination_infinite_stop":"","offset":"","td_ajax_preloading":"","td_filter_default_txt":"","td_ajax_filter_ids":"","el_class":"","color_preset":"","border_top":"","css":"","tdc_css":"","tdc_css_class":"td_uid_5_5e625858e4db3_rand","tdc_css_class_style":"td_uid_5_5e625858e4db3_rand_style"}'; block_td_uid_5_5e625858e4db3.td_column_number = "3"; block_td_uid_5_5e625858e4db3.block_type = "td_block_related_posts"; block_td_uid_5_5e625858e4db3.post_count = "3"; block_td_uid_5_5e625858e4db3.found_posts = "454"; block_td_uid_5_5e625858e4db3.header_color = ""; block_td_uid_5_5e625858e4db3.ajax_pagination_infinite_stop = ""; block_td_uid_5_5e625858e4db3.max_num_pages = "152"; tdBlocksArray.push(block_td_uid_5_5e625858e4db3); […]