No matter how the Moldovan media tries to present the activities of Silvia Radu, it is difficult to hide something in the world of information technology.
And although most of Chisinau’s TV channels talk about her as an “honest politician” and “effective manager”, reality paints the opposite picture . And that picture, as it turned out, is not so easy to conceal.
Back in 2013, the national agency for energy regulation conducted a review of the activities of the company Red Union Fenosa, led by Sylvia Radu. The report speaks about a number of violations in the company’s work, in particular about “significant volume of additional, inefficient spendings”, as well as “failure to adhere to the principle of maximum efficiency at minimum costs”.
Bypassing the legislation, the company assigned electric grids transferred to it free of charge by state institutions for a total of 115 million Lei.
In addition, the management of Red Union Fenosa worked out an excellent scheme, according to which customers did not have equal conditions in applications for their inclusion into electrical networks in the annual investment plans.
Businessman Vyacheslav Platon, now in jail for financial crimes, shares his memories of the cases that Sylvia Radu cranked together with Plahotniuc.
According to Platon, when he acquired the majority stake of Viktoria Bank from Vladimir Plahotniuc in 2012, he immediately noticed some of the unofficial expenses of the bank, specifying that Sylvia Radu received monthly cash for balances on the accounts of Union Fenosa.
“The head of the enterprise holds the organization’s payments on the bank accounts, the bank uses these funds, and the CEO, bypassing his stakeholders, is paid for this at the previously agreed cash rate. And everyone is happy! The bank gets access to cheap balance, the director of the enterprise – his cash”.
The ANRE report was submitted to Union Fenosa on January 27, 2014. It listed all the violations and multimillion dollar frauds.
For example, in 2008-2012 Union Fenosa transferred the Spanish company “Indra Sisteme”, the founder and owner of which was Ignacio Ibarra and then Sylvia Radu, about 30 million lei for “consulting services”. Only for this episode did Silvia Radu receive a rollback of over 170 million lei.
However, at a public hearing on November 4, 2015, Silvia Radu, then general manager of Gas Natural Fenosa, denied seeing this report.
The report was presented by the current deputy head of the Accounting Chamber Tudor Shoitov, who stated that several criminal cases could be opened simply by this report, but the parliament said that the report is a “waste of paper” and advised Shoyt to apply to the prosecutor’s office.
“I talked with one of Union Fenosa leaders once and he told me how hard they had to work to get rid of Radu. She stole without a second thought, but thanks to her relations with Plahotniuc all those losses were included in tariffs and the company didnt lose anything on paper, since the burden of recompensation was placed on the population.” adds Platon
Nevertheless, despite the published facts from official sources of the republic, it is aparently impossible for the media to cover the case objectively.
Radu herself refuses to comment on these issues, along with Gas Natural Fenosa PR department and even the Prosecutors office.
All while being the protege of the Democratic Party of Moldova she succesfuly continues to promote her election campaign thanks to the resources of Plahotniuc and the media he owns.
Moreover, Romanian experts from the Global Center Focus, under the patronage of the Soros Foundation, were drawn to this case to “teach Moldovans to listen to the right information”.