Interior Minister resigns invoking insufficient funding

Luni, 2 februarie 2009, 21:51 English | Top News

Recently sworn in Interior Minister Liviu Dragnea resigned from the office on Monday evening, invoking the insufficient funding received from the state budget for his institution. "The Interior Ministry can not silently accept the diminishing of its financial resources", Dragnea said.

The official mentioned that the targets he assumed at the moment of taking over the mandate - decentralization of the system and increasing the level of citizens' safety - can not be reached without financial support.

Dragnea was an Interior Minister for only 12 days, after the resignation of Gabriel Oprea, who resigned after being accused of bringing compromised officers in the leading structures of the ministry.

According to Social Democrat - PSD - sources (both ministers, Dragnea and Oprea, are members of the Social Democrat Party), Dragnea and the head of the Bucharest branch of PSD had a strong argument on who should be named deputy minister.

The Interior Minister also had some serious image problems during the past few days, after a double homicide in Brasov, involving Moldova racketeers, and the robbery of a weapons and ammunition storage in a military unit.