Controversial gifts: City Hall of Bucharest’s poorest district offers teachers luxury pens, notebooks
Teachers in Bucharest’s District 5, the capital’s poorest district, had a surprise at the beginning of this year, when they received luxury pens and notebooks as gifts from the district’s City Hall. <o:p></o:p>
RI Newsroom · Journalist
· Updated · 2 min read
Teachers in Bucharest’s District 5, the capital’s poorest district, had a surprise at the beginning of this year, when they received luxury pens and notebooks as gifts from the district’s City Hall.
The teachers considered the luxury gifts useless, however, and so they started selling the expensive pens on a local classifieds platform, according to local Recorder.ro. They would rather see more interest from the local authorities to the real problems in the District 5 schools.
The teachers received Montegrappa pens, the journalists found. Official distributors in Romania sell these pens at RON 630/piece (about EUR 130). However, the total amount spent by the City Hall on these luxury pens remains an enigma. The District 5 City Hall and the subordinated institutions have not passed any such acquisition through the Electronic Public Procurement System, and the Recorder journalists were unable to get a response from the authorities. In addition, the official distributors of the Montegrappa goods in Romania said they had nothing to do with these gifts offered by the District 5 City Hall.
The gifts started to arrive at schools and kindergartens in District 5 at the beginning of the year, right after the winter break. 2019 is an important year for the local politicians, as the Romanians will elect new mayors later this year.
“They told us to come and get our presents from the City Hall. That's how they said it: “from the City Hall.” When I saw Montegrappa, because I knew the company, I realized it was expensive. […] I don’t see how a RON 700 pen can be useful. And, anyway, the gifts came at a really bad time for us, as in that period we were left without heat. The radiators were cold and we were getting luxury pens,” one of the teachers told Recorder.ro.
It’s not the first time Daniel Florea, the mayor of Bucharest’s District 5, sends gifts to the schools. He previously offered the pupils school supplies and even St. Nicholas gifts packed in bags that had the mayor’s image printed on them.
(Photo source: ID 135081240 © Fototocam/Dreamstime.com)
