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The booth inaugurated last year with pomp by former Agriculture Minister Petre Daea in the center of Bucharest, which cost around € 60,000, operated for only a few months and is now closed.
Another state store, opened a year ago, is in Sibiu. It was opened to sell cheese to local shepherds, but has recently run into supply problems. In a few days, this shop will also be closed, write Stiri.tvr.ro.
The current Minister of Agriculture, Adrián Nechita Oros, put the project of the Chamber of Commerce of Unirea on hold. The minister says that irregularities have been found in the state company that manages these stores and that the activity was not profitable.
The Minister ordered the Control Body from the first day in the new position, in the conditions in which the members of the Board of Directors pointed out “serious problems regarding how to spend the budget assigned to the Trade Union House.” He said at the time that the state company had no economic and social impact.
The project would have become profitable if the entire network of 80 stores had been opened and not just two, as in the end, says the former director of the Unirea Chamber of Commerce.
Problems found by the watchdog
The report of the control body sent by the Ministry of Agriculture, obtained by profit.ro, shows that there are numerous irregularities in the activity of the Unirea Chamber of Commerce.
For example, at the end of last year, to get 1,000 lei, the Union House of Commerce spent 3,712 lei.
At the same time, to reach a turnover of 259,340 lei, more than 1 million lei were spent on salaries, which is 4 times more than the turnover, but also 700,176 lei on advertising, that is, 3 times more than the figure. Deal.
An investment objective was also acquired, consisting of movable and immovable property, for the amount of 9 million lei and an advance of one million euros was paid, with a contractual clause that guaranteed the execution of the contract, otherwise, Casa Unirea – implicitly the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development – will lose this advance.
„SN Unirea SA’s main activity was not the creation of a framework in which local producers were really supported to promote and capitalize on their products. Thus, the producers were not paid according to the contracts concluded, putting the products on sale at prices much higher than those practiced in the free market, which led to the impossibility of capitalizing them (see the case of the store opened in Sibiu ). Consequently, it can be seen that the main objective of SN Unirea SA was not to promote the consumption of Romanian agri-food products and Romanian producers, but to create an institution whose capital is available to the PSD party’s clientele ”, the current rulers consider.
Budget also in 2020
Although the activity of the Unirea Chamber of Commerce has been almost suspended since last year, being a failure, the Ministry of Agriculture approved a budget this year, extremely optimistic.
Last year, the Unirea Chamber of Commerce had revenues of less than 2 million lei, but expenses of 9 million lei.
Despite this, the Government has budgeted for this year revenues of 71 million lei, that is, 37 times more, and expenses of 64 million, compared to 9.06 million lei, the total expenses incurred last year.
For this year, the government estimated that the Union will achieve a gross profit of 7.3 million lei, although last year it recorded losses of 7.1 million lei.
The Romanian House of Agrifood Commerce Unirea estimates a number of 40 employees by the end of the year, compared to 59 employees at the end of 2019.The average monthly earnings per employee determined based on salary expenses were established at 6,038 lei, compared with 6,925 lei per year last.
Daea: “Inadmissible”
Petre Daea, the artisan of the Unirea Chamber of Commerce, recently declared that it is “inadmissible” that in Romania there is no chain of stores in which farmers can capitalize “directly” on their products, being “extremely upset” by luck of the Romanian House of the Agrifood Union.
“It is inadmissible in Romania not to find the political will to make its own commercial network. We will not have Romanian products and we will not be able to capitalize on the work of farmers and guarantee quality food for consumers if in Romania we do not make our own chain of stores to be run by our Romanians and through which products can be brought to market, “said Petre. Daea.
The Unirea Agri-Food Trade House was established by former Agriculture Minister Petre Daea in January 2019, with a total state capital of 93 million lei. The company aimed to make a chain of 60 stores with Romanian products to compete with the large retailers.
Only two stores were opened in 2019, in Sibiu and Bucharest, and spaces for two more stores and warehouses were also rented.
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