The capital’s general mayor, Nikushor Dan, said that 15 municipal companies have been liquidated so far and that ten companies remain, and “about six” of them can be saved.

“We found 25 companies. We liquidated 15 and lost 4,100 people. (…) Now there are ten of them, and of these ten, probably about six will remain. That is, there is no problem with the liquidation of STB, Thermoenergetics, Budtrest, with which you conduct some work. Energy also works. The parking enterprise… there is another discussion. But there were so many things that needed to be done that those that were somewhat balanced, we kept the service working,” he said on the B1TV channel, Agerpres reports.

Regarding the parking fee, the mayor emphasized that it was established to stimulate public transport, and not to increase the City Hall’s income.

“The mission receives about 1.5 million lei per month, considering that we give more than 100 million lei in subvention for public transport. The entire central and northern zones, which are the busiest, together have around 80,000 – 90,000 parking spaces, all of which have been free until now. We managed to put more than 20 thousand on the ground. And in the places where I have inserted it is visible because you can find a parking space and it is more free. And we want to reach these 80-90 thousand. We have 35,000 developed. We are moving at a certain speed to civilize the central area. We encourage people to use public transport,” Nikusor Dan said.

On the other hand, he noted that so far “about 80%” of the employees, whom he accused during the election campaign of being part of the “octopus” that ran the capital city hall under the previous administration, have left. “You know I came to the campaign with an octopus. About 80% of people have left,” Nikusor Dan said.

Nikusor Dan: Bucharest’s current debt is zero. Long-term debt amounts to 3 billion lei

Mayor Nikusor Dan said that Bucharest’s current debt is zero, and the long-term debt is 3 billion lei, Agerpres writes.

“Now the current debt is zero. Long-term debt amounts to 3 billion lei. (…) All states, all municipalities have long-term debts, distributed in turn, which they pay monthly and borrow within a certain limit. This is absolutely natural. We talked about current debt. That is, any of the people we owe money to could come and freeze the accounts, as some have done. When we came to the city hall, our accounts were blocked. We could pay salaries, but we could not pay investments. For example, there were some turnstiles and some relatively simple things, the lighting system in the National Arena – we were going to organize Euro 2020 in Bucharest – and we couldn’t pay them and UEFA said they are taking the organization away from us. So we couldn’t do it,” Nikusor Dan told B1TV.

General Edil noted that at the beginning of his mandate, he often met with representatives of companies that were supposed to receive money from the local government and who were waiting to promise them “that at some point” the outstanding sums would be distributed and provided. Nikusor Dan noted that due to the financial situation of the City Hall, he decided to communicate less publicly at the beginning of his mandate.

“I couldn’t go out and say, ‘We’re broke,’ because I had to meet people the next day to tell them, ‘Hold on, we’ll pay you.’ I would not inspire confidence in this or that position. For the good of the institution, I didn’t get in touch for a while to do all these things quietly, behind the scenes, so that people would trust,” he said.

Nikusor Dan also specified that the three billion lei accumulated as debts could be used for the purchase of 200 trams.