She certainly is back with a real bang this week, our lovely Tourism and Regional Development Minister, the incomparable Elena Udrea.
Following on from her ‘homes for the poor for the rich‘ programme, launched yesterday, we discover today that she is moving into the world of jazz and blues. Nice.
From this investigative blogger – whose story we are basically translating – do hope he doesn’t mind, we find out that she is organising a blues festival in Sighisoara from February 25-27. (Why is this the Tourism and Regional Development Minister’s business? Who knows).
Anyway, as the ministry doesn’t have what it takes to organise the festival, it is outsourcing it. To whom? you may well may ask.
Well, on February 22 (just three days before the festival) Udrea’s ministry is holding an auction to decide who gets the gig. As with all of these auctions, it will not be lowest bidder that wins, instead the bidder who best meets the requirements of the auction. In this case (in fact, in almost all cases, in Romania) the requirements are very particular indeed.
And as Sutu.ro also points out, tickets for the event are already on sale, and the organiser is apparently Asociatia Culturala Sighisoara Blues Hospital, who have organised the event since 2005.
Nothing wrong in that of course, we are sure they do a great job. But why does the Tourism and Regional Development Ministry have to get involved, and why be so crap in its efforts to make what is a stitch-up look above board?
Why not just say that as Organiser X has done a great job for the past five years, they will be organising the event for the sixth?
Transparency is all well and good, but don’t try to make fools of us.
Mind you, this story (garbled as ever thanks to HotNews) http://english.hotnews.ro/stiri-top_news-6935754-elena-udrea-people-exaggerate-misunderstandings-between-romanians-and-hungarians-covasna-harghita.htm shows that Ms Udrea is not 100% clueless. I would agree with her on this. Things are not exactly totally harmonious here but the sense that the two communities in HR/CV are at each others throats is absolute tripe. Most of the nationalist rhetoric that disses the other comes from outside Transylvania (from the South of Romania from one angle and from Hungary from the other)
[Reply]
Craig Turp Reply:
February 23rd, 2010 at 8:05 pm
Agreed.
[Reply]
I can confirm that at least last year the festival was superb. I wrote about it here: http://szekely.blogspot.com/2009/02/come-on-you-blues.html
I have no idea who organised it, but I can only assume that Elena Udrea had nothing to do with it.
But having a bid to organise a concert two days before the concert, when presumably (one hopes) the acts, venue, etc are already fixed seems a little bit…dodgy, let’s just say.
[Reply]
Craig Turp Reply:
February 17th, 2010 at 1:03 pm
Exactly! What’s so tragic is that in their effort to appear transparent they end up looking more murky than ever.
[Reply]