Romania’s prime minister Florin Citu announced on Friday that he has asked for an investigation on the investment grants scheme for SMEs – the third of the Government’s three support schemes for the local small and medium enterprises.

“I want to make sure that this money reaches the companies that need it the most, depending on the pre-established objective criteria,” Citu wrote in a Facebook post.

Under this scheme, local SMEs could ask for grants between EUR 50,000 and EUR 200,000 to finance investment projects.

Unlike the other two schemes (microgrants and working capital grants), where the allocation was done on a first-come-first-served principle, the investment grants are allotted based on a scoring system.

Thus, the most applications were submitted in the last two days of the application period, on January 28 and 29. Moreover, many of the applications submitted at the end got higher scores than those submitted earlier, according to the preliminary score lists released by the Economy Ministry last week, leading to suspicions that some of the late applicants may have had inside data that allowed them to adjust their applications, according to Hotnews.ro.

Meanwhile, economy minister Claudiu Nasui said that the measure failed to reach its target as about half of the firms that have high chances of getting grants plan to finance real estate assets.

“That was not the purpose of the measure. It was meant to be a relief measure during the COVID period, and ends up financing apartment purchases,” Nasui said, quoted by Startupcafe.ro.

andrei@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Facebook/Guvernul Romaniei)