Bogdan Zumbreanu and the position of the NAC director

B. Z. It is an armchair that assumes far more responsibilities than I thought at the time of my appointment. It is a function that involves activity not only of discovering offenses and not just managing the process of preventing corruption. It is a function that also involves many many other issues related to the administration of an institution: starting with logistics, human resources, accounting - facts that take a lot of time and health.

Year 2017 vs. present

B. Z. At the time of my appointment as a director, we proposed to the team to have a systemic approach to the phenomenon of corruption so that we do not perform momentary operations but try to penetrate the systems where the act of corruption was rooted. Our investigations and polls showed that the areas most affected by the phenomenon of corruption were justice, education and health - areas where we have intervened with large-scale operations. I did it to draw the authorities' attention that they had to make order at home. It is not the best way to go for action to fight corruption. All these cases, which were initiated as a result of these operations, some of them are at the stage of completion, some of them have already been sent to the court.

Small Corruption vs. High corruption and impact on the country`s economy.

B. Z. Big corruption and small corruption is an apple of discord that has been discussed by several actors, including politics. It's ok for PR to talk about big corruption, if you try to grasp the importance and severity of small corruption, you understand that the problem is actually small corruption, but not high corruption. The operations of the Center for Combating Economic Crimes and the operations carried out by the National Anticorruption Center had different effects.

I've been working in the Center since 2002, and all of those developments have happened ... they`ve been through me if you want. Our actions have generated political crises, our actions have led to government failures, our actions have led to changes in the top-level leadership of some institutions, but corruption in those institutions has not been diminished to the expectations of the citizens. If we change the head of an institution, that does not mean that his subordinates will not continue to commit acts of corruption. And when you talk about the impact on the national economy, I do not mean that the Customs or the Fiscal Inspectorate are the institutions most affected by corruption, but it is an example to understand the gravity of this. In order not to document cases of smuggling, a routine inspector takes bribes.

Therefore, some money that has to get into the budget, I do not. In order not to document tax evasion or not to carry out a proper tax audit, a tax inspector may request bribery and create situations when certain amounts of money are not paid in the budget. And if we gather all together, here is the impact on the national economy.

Our whole team came to a single conclusion. Good people, we do not cut off corruption only with the arrests of high-liability officials, and that`s not the case in a country. For example, our colleagues in Romania, the DNA authority in Romania is incontestable, but does anyone want to say that there are fewer corruption cases in Romania each year? Not. There are so many files, but that does not mean that the anti-corruption authority does not work.

DNA in Romania has the competence to fight against corruption. At the same time, small corruption is the responsibility of the territorial bodies. We as the country and territory are fewer, but if we are to make a comparison, our achievements are almost equal to the achievements of DNA.

Anti-Corruption Campaigns

B. Z. We are trying to educate the citizen. That does not mean that we have left aside the fighting process. Another is the fact that we have understood that it is necessary to raise a generation that will no longer pay a bribe. This bribery of civil servants will not stop by arresting these officials. We have to teach children not to give money anymore.

In this sense, we have had several social campaigns. I have had training in various public authorities. I`ve set up anti-corruption volunteers. There are young people who are very enthusiastic about what the activity of propagating this principle is about changing the mentality. There are young people who are trying to propagate this new culture of integrity in society. Today we have a less generous generation of students who basically do not pay money in schools, pupils who bear the consequences of these facts. So they are marginalized by some teachers, they are regarded as a white crow by classmates, but they assume this struggle and have all our respect.