Over the past four years, DNA has concluded contracts with Asseco See worth more than two million lei. One of those who decided who won the tenders is the head of the IT office Corneliu Sterea, whose wife has been working at Asseco See since May 2020. Contracts with DNA started coming in after her employment, Rise Project reveals.

Corneliu Sterea has repeatedly signed that he is not in a conflict of interest, although his wife’s e-mail appears in the IT company’s contacts on the public procurement platform. The National Integrity Agency told us this situation “may give rise to a conflict of interest”

One of the purchases was financed by Norwegian anti-corruption funds. The accounting court claims that the acquisition is illegal, unnecessary and carried out in a non-transparent manner.

In the fall of 2020, the National Anti-Corruption Directorate (DNA) is spending almost 650,000 lei on the development of a web-based document management platform. Almost all the money comes from Norwegian anti-corruption funds. That is the name of the project: “Fighting crime and corruption”.

But the company where the money went and its connection to the person inside the DNA shows a different reality behind the scenes of the institution.

The platform acquired by DNA helps the IT department and prosecutors manage internal data and documents more efficiently. The head of this department is Corneliu Sterea, one of the five people who decided which company to sign the contract with.

According to the results of the assessment, the winner was the company Asseco See SRL, which was the only one that participated in the auction. The software, licenses and services the company offered seemed to be exactly what DNA was looking for.

The documents, however, omitted an important detail: the wife of the head of the department’s IT office worked for Asseco See SRL.

Her salary more than tripled when she joined Asseco See, the DNA IT boss’s wealth declarations show. Her former job brought her an annual income of 23,000 lei, and now she earns more than 80,000 lei.

“This is not the case,” the conflict of interest document says next to Corneliu Sterea’s name. In the affidavit he signed, he says he understood that “a conflict of interest exists if the impartial and objective performance of my duties in connection with this acquisition is compromised by reasons related to my family.” (read more at Rise Project)