The Local Council of Sector 3 approved 32 million lei for festive lighting through an agreement directly awarded to a company owned by the municipality.
On November 11, 2026, the Local Council of District 3 approved a three-year framework agreement worth 32 million lei for installing festive Christmas and New Year's lighting. The contract would have been awarded directly, without a tender, to a company subordinate to the District 3 City Hall, headed by Robert Negoiță.
The information was made public by Cătălin-Florin Moldoveanu, local councilor and leader of the PNL group in the District 3 Local Council. He criticized the value of the contract and published examples of prices from the agreement's annex, specifying that the amounts are expressed per item, excluding VAT, with installation included.
Among the products mentioned are a lighted Christmas tree, valued at 188,100 lei, a 3D lighted cone, at 169,950 lei, and a horse-drawn carriage, at 161,700 lei. A gramophone with an arch of musical notes would cost 110,000 lei, while 200 light motifs would amount to 1.3 million lei.
Moldoveanu compared the amount with the budgets allocated by other administrations. According to him, Bucharest City Hall spent approximately 19 million lei over the past three years on festive lighting in central Bucharest, while Brașov allocated 4.2 million lei last year for the entire city.
The PNL councilor maintains that the investment should be analyzed in the context of unresolved problems in the district, such as unreconstructed apartment buildings, schools requiring renovations, and streets without sewage systems. Neither the party nor District 3 City Hall has provided, so far, a reaction regarding the framework agreement and the award procedure.
Context: Robert Negoiță has previously been involved in controversies related to construction works and permits in Sector 3
In 2021, the mayor of Sector 3, Robert Negoiță, was presented by Recorder as the person who allegedly personally coordinated illegal construction works near the National Library, where two workers died and four others were injured after an earth embankment collapsed. The journalistic investigation also claims that a sketch drawn by the mayor existed, and the case reached court in 2024 without the mayor being indicted; the charge of involuntary manslaughter was dismissed in 2024.
Also in Sector 3, the administration led by Negoiță came under criticism after the City Hall issued building permits for apartment blocks on land proposed for a park in the Drumul Gura Crivățului – Theodor Pallady area. Residents and representatives of the PNL and USR parties complained that the permits had allegedly been issued for the site before the expropriation was completed, while the City Hall argued that the land was privately owned and that the procedure was not complete.
