So they turned to the locally-built Dacia Logan, a terribly-equipped, low-performance affordable car. A little under 400 vehicles were needed at the time, but, given the fact that the approved budget for buying the vehicles was well above the price of the 400 units “as is” (one Logan is worth about EUR12,000 new), the police decided to tune them a bit.
After the models received the upgrades (the scandal that followed showed that, in fact, the upgrades were nothing more than the addition of police lights, comm stations and such), the police paid for a price of EUR78.750/piece.
Those were the happy days. Now, two years later, the police can no longer use the cars bought in 2008. Not because they don't work, but because they don't work without fuel. The fuel, as you know, costs money and, well, the police no longer has money to spare.
Romanian media reported this week that, because of the cap placed on fuel allocation per vehicle (some 100 liters each month, for patrol cars!), police officers in the Transylvanian city of Cluj-Napoca are forced to use public transport when they go on missions.
“Last week, officers were forced to work in 18, 19 degrees below zero outside temperatures,” Constantin Mandache, the head of the local police union told ziare.cm.ro. “An officer must do his job.”
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