Bucharest mayor Ciprian Ciucu launches board selections for five municipal companies
Applications for the boards of five municipal companies close on 16 November, after a two-stage selection with four-year terms. Ciucu says the process is meant to depoliticize the firms.
The announcement
Capital City Mayor Ciprian Ciucu announced on Friday, 16 October, that Bucharest City Hall had published calls to select new boards of directors for five municipal companies. The notices appear on the city hall website, and applications can be submitted until 16 November. The companies are the Municipal Parking Company, Energetica Servicii Company, the Metropolitan Buildings Trust, Service Ciclop S.A. and Eco Igienizare Company. Ciucu shared the announcements on Facebook so that they would reach as many people as possible. In the same post he tied the move to a campaign pledge.
I promised to professionalize and depoliticize the municipal companies.
Ciucu presented the process as open and legal. He wrote that the post itself was meant to make the selection visible, and he urged the press and the public to take notice.
How the selection works
Board members will serve four-year terms. The selection has two stages. In the first, committees check whether each application meets the administrative requirements, may ask candidates for clarifications, reject incomplete files and draw up a longlist. In the second, the longlisted files are scored against an evaluation grid, with each candidate compared against the profile of the board and against the candidate's own profile. A shortlist follows, and shortlisted candidates must submit a statement of intent before a final interview. The process ends with the consolidation of the evaluation results.
Earlier steps and the STB dispute
The current calls follow a decision by the general councillors on 20 August, which updated the selection procedures for eight municipal companies. Those companies include Energetica Servicii, Parking, the Metropolitan Buildings Trust, Eco Igienizare, Service Ciclop, the Public Lighting company and the Traffic Management company, along with a health centre company linked to STB. The decisions also provide for updated selection plans, the approval of selection committees and the rules under which those committees will work. Ciucu's post criticized ADI TPBI, which he said had published the selection process for STB on obscure websites, and he presented his own approach as the opposite.
- General councillors update selection procedures for eight municipal companies
- Mayor Ciprian Ciucu announces calls for five company boards
- Deadline for submitting applications
I want Bucharest to be a model for the entire country.
Online reaction
More than 100 users replied to the Facebook post, and the reactions split into two camps. Some commenters backed the initiative, while others questioned why anyone without a party affiliation would apply. One comment claimed that PNL members would be among the selected candidates, and another warned that public institutions could become victims of political ambitions. These remarks are comments from users and not verified facts, and the articles do not report an official response to them.
