 Between 1993 and 1996 she was a Secretary of State in the Romanian government, working in the Department for Economic Reform.In 1996 she was elected to the Chamber of Deputies, and acted as Deputy chairman to the Commission for European Integration, and was also a member of the Commission for Economical Policy, Reform and Privatization.On 29 July 2003 a corruption scandal broke out when Adevărul newspaper accused Puwak of facilitating access for her husband's and her son's companies to some 150,000 non-reimbursable euros through the "Leonardo da Vinci" EU program, while she was in charge of those funds.