The pontoon does not often go to the water

21 October 2021

Raluca Turcan found time, in her busy schedule, to participate on September 22, 2021 in the fast cutting of the inaugural ribbon of a pontoon / itinerant center for treating children with disabilities in the Danube Delta. The pontoon in question was arranged by the SERA Foundation, with money from the sponsor Penny (Rewe Group), about 120,000 euros, and from European funds. The pontoon was also included in the documents of the European-funded project "Always in the family - a project to reduce institutionalization, the risk of separation and to ensure recovery services for children in Tulcea County", a project with a total value of 5,954,979.39 lei.

SERA is one of the oldest associations / foundations operating in post-revolutionary Romania, its founder, François de Combret, being among those first Westerners who saw the potential of international adoptions. In fact, until the moratorium that stopped international adoptions, SERA was one of the main exporters of children in Romania, which was also declared by the former European official Rollie Post and supported by its head at the time, European Commissioner Günter Verheugen.

After cutting the pipeline for international adoptions, SERA struggled for a while with the system to reopen its baby faucet, then reoriented and began to get good money from the Romanian state, the EU, UNICEF, the World Bank and other institutional funders, as well as from private sponsors. This money went to projects related to child protection and social assistance, childcare centers for children with disabilities and the like, as well as many hundreds of hours of seminars and workshops.unnecessary sums, healthy salaries of employees. For example, in 2020, the net salary of the executive director of the SERA Romania Foundation was 200,200 lei per year, to which was added a small sum of 51,870 lei for the management and coordination of projects on European funds. In total, 21,000 lei per month, net. A beautiful amount, which the executive director of SERA practically doubles, with an indemnity of 21,840 lei per month, which he receives as president of the Economic and Social Council.

But who is this benefactor of the children, this good Samaritan who, in exchange for only 42,840 lei per month, takes care of the children, and of the whole council that analyzes the draft laws, decisions and ordinances?

Bogdan Simion is called the charity and has been running the SERA for many years, wandering through the good world of people who do not work for the state, but have very good connections with the state, their organizations being heavily funded with public money. Using the long-standing friendship that binds the SERA foundation to Ludovic Orban and vice versa, Bogdan Simion obtained, on December 30, 2019, the status of public utility association, through the signature of Violeta Alexandru. If he had had a little more luck, Bogdan Simion would probably have signed the granting of the status of public utility association for SERA, in 2015, when he was about to become Minister of Labor in the Ciolo? cabinet. However, he is just a poor director and a poor president of a state body, who barely takes home almost 43,000 lei a month,

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