The Sculeni commune hall announced on Thursday, 23 July, the start of works to modernise Burebista Street. In a short video clip, the administration specified that the repair is being carried out “under the Government Programme ‘Europe is Near’” — a state programme through which villages and towns across the country repair their roads. Behind the one-sentence announcement, however, lie more than a year of decisions, a tender worth over four million lei and a challenge that public documents lay out in full.
From the outset, a clarification that avoids an easy confusion: this is not Burebista Street in Ungheni. The municipality is refurbishing, this same year and also through “Europe is Near”, a street of the same name in the Dănuțeni neighbourhood — a work of about 10.3 million lei that Triunghi.md has already written about. The one in Sculeni is a distinct project, of smaller value, in a different locality.
What “Europe is Near” is
The programme was announced in May 2025 by Deputy Prime Minister Vladimir Bolea and deals exclusively with local roads — streets in villages and towns, communal roads, pavements. The files are assessed by the National Office for Regional and Local Development, and the money comes from the state budget. The Ministry of Infrastructure described the source as follows:
The “Europe is Near” programme is financed by the Government through the “Buget+” financial package, with a value of 500 million lei. The maximum ceiling for each project is 10 million lei. Ministry of Infrastructure and Regional Development, communiqué of 19 May 2025
For large localities, with over 1,500 residents — as Sculeni is —, the ceiling is up to nine million lei, with a contribution of 10% from the local budget. To the 2025 call, 579 town halls responded, with projects totalling 2.6 billion lei — more than five times the available fund. The enormous interest explains why every street admitted into the programme is, for a community, a competition won.
How the project reached Sculeni
The road was not chosen from an office. On 1 May 2025, the town hall organised public consultations to establish which section most needed repair, and the result was validated by the communal council on 29 May, through Decision No. 03/01. The document records that, following the discussions with residents, “the capital repair of Burebista Street was identified as a priority” and approves the submission of the project “Works to modernise Burebista Street in the village of Sculeni, Ungheni district”. Mayor Sergiu Gușevati was mandated to submit the file and sign the financing contract. The decision passed with 12 votes in favour, none against and one abstention.
Unlike the repairs “in the white variant” in other localities — simple gravelling —, the Sculeni project is a capital repair, with an asphalt surface, as the state programme allows.
A four-million tender and five bidders
For the execution, the town hall organised an open tender, with an estimated value of 4,056,652 lei. Five road-construction firms entered, with close offers: the lowest was submitted by Vicoliv Grup — 3,438,069 lei —, followed by “Drumuri Strășeni” (3,556,765), Aedificator (3,627,342), Lincons (3,849,923) and Corsag (3,949,665).
The contract was awarded to Vicoliv Grup by Decision No. 3 of 27 April 2026 of the town hall’s procurement working group, published on MTender on 15 May: 3,438,069.30 lei excluding VAT, that is 4,125,683.16 lei including VAT.
A challenge upheld in full
The road to the construction site was not smooth. The firm that had submitted the lowest price, Vicoliv Grup, challenged the way the commission had evaluated the offers, and the National Agency for Dispute Resolution found in its favour: on 16 April 2026, the challenge was upheld in full, with remedial measures. In simple terms, the initial evaluation was annulled and sent back to be redone. It is a public procedural stage, not a conclusion about the integrity of any firm.
The re-evaluation ended with the award decision of 27 April. All five offers received the maximum score for similar experience, execution time and works guarantee, so the ranking was decided by price: Vicoliv Grup — 100 points, “Drumuri Strășeni” — 97.33.
A street a step from the border crossing
Sculeni is no ordinary village: with almost 4,750 residents, the commune is one of the most important points on the country’s western border, through the Sculeni–Iași customs crossing. A repaired central street there means not only the comfort of a few households, but also a small piece of a larger picture — that of a state programme which, at least on paper, brings asphalt to the edge of the villages. According to the award decision, the execution schedules of all the offers fitted within the two-month term. The completion date does not appear on MTender: as of 11 September, the contract was listed there with no value, no signing date and no attached document.
Correction — 11 September 2026
In the initial version of this article we wrote that the winning firm was not public and that neither the contractor nor the sum for which the contract was awarded appeared in the procurement documents. That was wrong: award decision No. 3 of 27 April 2026 — by which, after the re-evaluation of the offers that followed the decision of the National Agency for Dispute Resolution, the contract went to Vicoliv Grup for 4,125,683.16 lei including VAT — had been on MTender since 15 May 2026, more than two months before the article appeared. We have corrected the summary and the passages on the tender, the challenge and the contract. We have also removed the statement that this challenge explains why more than a year passed between the approval of the project and the start of the works: the challenge was filed on 25 March and decided on 16 April 2026. The rest of the article stands unchanged.