Head of Romanian tax collection agency ANAF dismissed

Romania’s prime minister Viorica Dancila replaced the head of the tax collection agency ANAF, Mihaela Triculescu, who served in this position for only five months, with Mirela Calugareanu, local Economica.net reported.

As opposed to Triculescu, appointed with no prior experience reportedly at the request of the former PM advisor Darius Valcov, the new ANAF head has served since 2001 in the public administration and even headed ANAF during the cabinet of Mihai Tudose in 2017. She will have to meet the expectations of finance minister Eugen Teodorovici, who asked for more revenues to the budget, above the target set in the budget planning.

Romania’s Government set a 28%-of-GDP target for the budget revenues when drafting the budget planning for 2019, but counted on 30%-of-GDP revenues, according to comments by finance minister Eugen Teodorovici.

“Officially, when we inked the budget [the revenues target] was 28%, but the agreement was to come up with more efficient measures and increase it to 30%,” Teodorovici stated in early May, prompting rumors about the ANAF head’s imminent replacement. At the same time, the finance minister’s comment implied that tax collection lags behind schedule, which seems to be confirmed by opposition leader Raluca Turcan announcing disappointing 9.7% year-on-year rise of budget revenues and 1.2% of GDP deficit in January-April.

In related news, PM Viorica Dancila’s economic advisor Darius Valcov reportedly resigned. He received last year an eight-year sentence for corruption deeds, which is not final though. Another protegee of Valcov, the head of the public health insurance house (CNAS) Adriana Cotel reportedly resigned as well.

Last week, Dancila appointed insolvency lawyer Remus Borza as her economic advisor. The PM also dismissed her press advisor Anca Alexandrescu and also removed her from coordinating the Social Democratic Party’s press department. Darius Valcov and Anca Alexandrescu were both close collaborators of former PSD leader Liviu Dragnea, who was sentenced to three and a half years in jail last week. PM Dancila replaced Dragnea as head of PSD until the party will organize a national congress to elect a new leadership team.

(Photo source: Gov.ro)