The City Hall of Sector 5 pays 50,000 euros a company with a single employee for the installation of an electronic voting system, reveals Bucharest Bulletin
Vlad Popescu Piedone Photo: Inquam Photos / Saul Pop
For two years, between 2021 and 2023, the company that won the contract, Optimatech Systems SRL, had no money in accounts and zero employees. From 2024 they are listed with a single employee, and from that year he began to have more contracts with the City Hall led by Vlad Popescu Piedone, write the journalists from Bucharest bulletin.
The contract of 50,000 euros was entrusted directly by the City Hall of Sector 5 to the company Optimatech Systems SRL on April 17. The City Hall wants by this contract that during the Local Council meetings the counselors can vote electronically, and not by raising their hand.
Although almost two months have passed since the award of the contract, at the last meeting of the local councilors, since the end of May, the system has not yet been implemented, according to the Bucharest Bulletin, who spoke with several people who attended the meeting.
Contracts of 250,000 euros
Optimatech Systems SRL is owned by the life partner of a person close to the spokesman of the City Hall of Sector 5, Alexandra Samoilă, according to the quoted source.
From December 2024 the same company has obtained several contracts with the City Hall of Sector 5 or with other subordinate institutions, and their amount exceeds 250,000 euros. All these contracts were given by direct entrustment, notes the same source.
The mayor of Sector 5, Vlad Popescu Piedone, and the spokesman of the institution, Alexandra Samoilă, did not answer the questions of the journalists Bulletin de Bucharest on this topic. Hotnews also tried to get a point of view from the two, but they did not respond to the newsroom's calls.
Read the entire investigation Bulletin de Bucharest.
A ghost company has received, in the past, the IT Security Contract of the City Hall
The information revealed by the Bucharest Bulletin comes in the context in which, in October 2024, the City Hall led by Vlad Popescu Piedone announced a cyber attack on the institution's servers, stating that hackers demanded the sum of $ 5 million.
Subsequently, an investigation by the journalists from Snoop and Bucharest Bulletin showed that the City Hall 5 assigned, in 2023, when he was led by Cristian Popescu Piedone, the current head of ANPC, a computer audit contract to XKR Tools, which had only one employee in the last balance. The company had no contracts in SEAP and was not on the list of the main auditors authorized by the Romanian state.
