Conflict between Oana Gheorghiu and Petrișor Peiu, regarding the shares held by number 2 of AUR in state companies
Petrișor Peiu claimed on Saturday that “millions of euros” were spent for the spread of a post in which Oana Gheorghiu drew attention to the fact that the leader of the AUR senators owns shares of more than 1 million euros in state-owned companies listed on the stock exchange. In reply, the deputy prime minister challenged him “to donate all those shares back to the Romanian state” if it turns out that he is lying.
The possible listing on the stock exchange of some minority stakes in state companies, one of the themes invoked by PSD-AUR in the motion submitted against the Bolojan Government, led to an exchange of words between Oana Gheorghiu and Petrișor Peiu.
On Friday, the deputy prime minister drew attention to the shares held by Petrișor Peiu in state companies. “Who wants to save Romania from the evil Government that wants to “sell our country”?”, wrote Oana Gheorghiu, ironically, in the opening of the post on Facebook.
According to the deputy prime minister, Petrișor Peiu owns the following shares:
- Hidroelectrica SA: 666,926 RON;
- Transgaz SA: 420,640 RON;
- Transelectrica SA: 61,535 RON;
- Nuclearelectrica SA: 583,144 RON;
- Romgaz SA: 1,210,881 RON;
- Oil Terminal SA: 26,141 RON;
- Electrica SA: 94,720 RON;
- Conpet SA: 48,880 RON;
- SN Petrom SA: 1,214,939 RON.
“How does parliamentarian Petrișor Peiu, fighter against the listing of state companies, get along with investor Petrișor Peiu, who owns shares in the respective state companies?” concluded Oana Gheorghiu.
Petrișor Peiu's replica, number 2 of AUR
The President of the National Management Council of the AUR gave a reply to the Deputy Prime Minister, on Saturday, also on Facebook.
“Someone spent several million euros yesterday to republish, through tens of thousands of accounts, in almost all newspapers and on almost all televisions, a post by the Deputy Prime Minister Oana Gheorghiu. In that post, I was accused of holding shares, worth over 1 million euros, in several companies listed on the stock exchange,” Petrișor Peiu wrote.
He said that the data from Oana Gheorghiu's post also appear in his wealth declaration, and the deputy prime minister's message “does not answer” the “fundamentals of the problem”.
“Oana Gheorghiu proposed to the government, on April 15, a mechanism through which, in a maximum of 4 months, she would have assigned shares at a price much lower than the market value, in Hidroelectrica and Romgaz, worth over 10 billion lei, to investment funds chosen at the discretion of the government,” added Peiu.
The senator claims that he bought shares “over 20 years and only through transactions as fair as possible, being entirely carried out on the platform of the Stock Exchange.”
Petrișor Peiu accused Oana Gheorghiu of “shamelessly lying” when she states that he would oppose listing on the stock exchange.
“However, I am firmly opposed to the obscure methods of “accelerated private placement” of the state's wealth to niche foreign funds chosen by the government at the behest of the government,” continued number 2 of the AUR.
The challenge launched by Oana Gheorghiu
The deputy prime minister came back with a new post on Saturday, after Petrișor Peiu's statements, about which he said he was “upset that the whole of Romania found out about the shares he owns in state companies”.
“I invite you to go to the page of the parliamentarian/investor and tell him exactly how much money each of you took. And if it turns out, however, that the parliamentarian/investor is lying, I invite him to donate back to the Romanian state all the shares he owns in state companies. That's just the word: we are not selling our country,” Oana Gheorghiu said.
