Former mayor of Timișoara, Dominic Fritz, claims that the DNA is investigating a criminal case targeting his former team at City Hall, related to subsidies for Colterm

Former Timișoara mayor Dominic Fritz claims that the National Anticorruption Directorate may be handling a criminal case targeting several members of his former team at City Hall. According to him, the investigation is reportedly related to how funds intended for the Colterm heating company were transferred during the winter of 2021–2022.

Fritz says the charge could be abuse of office and that the acts may have been classified as “misappropriation,” although, in his view, no one took money for personal gain. He specifies that he has no legal status in the case and was not officially informed of its existence, but says he is familiar with the matter.

The former mayor explains that the government allocated 67 million lei to Timișoara City Hall to support the heating system, and that the municipality transferred the money to Colterm under the service delegation contract. Fritz claims that the Ministry of Finance indicated that the subsidies account should be used in order to avoid illegal state aid.

He believes that the investigation, if it exists, would concern an accounting dispute and warns that such cases may cause public officials to avoid making administrative decisions. In this context, he recalls that during his term, Colterm received more than one billion lei in subsidies, while the City Hall invested hundreds of millions of lei in rehabilitating the network. DNA has not so far provided public information about the alleged investigation.