PARLIAMENT DECLARES AIR MOLDOVA PRIVATIZATION ILLEGAL

The Moldovan Parliament declared illegal the privatization of the Air Moldova company and recommended the Government to annul the contract. Such a decision was approved by majority of votes at the Friday's sitting on the basis of the report, presented by the commission on investigating suspicious cases of privatization in 2013-2019.

Chairman of the parliamentary investigative commission Igor Munteanu said that the privatization agreement was based on fraudulent scheme.

"In 2015-2018 the airlines was governed by an acting director, who committed numerous violations. The pernicious management led to a paradox situation - the company was increasing the passenger transportation from year to year, though accumulating debts, which reached 1.3 billion lei", he said, adding that no audit has been conducted in the company since 2014.

According to the MP, the privatization of the national airline has never been considered, on contrary, a plan on restructuring Air Moldova was presented in March, but two months later the Public Property Agency agrees to conduct evaluation of the enterprise to start its denationalization.

"This evaluation established the market cost of the company at 48.6 million lei, though objectively it is at least about 3 billion lei. We addressed to independent experts and came to a conclusion that the assessment was conducted with numerous violations", he said.

Munteanu said that the privatization contract was compiled in absolute inadequate manner.

"The document does not imply any guarantees. The state institutions, which participated in the signing of contract, knew beforehand about the possible risk that the buyer [Civil Aviation Group] will not be fulfilling liabilities. One of reasons of concluding transaction with private company was the need of covering the Air Moldova debt. However, it has still not been repaid, though according to documents, the buyer had to resolve this problem within 3-4 months. We have to conclude that a year after the privatization, the Air Moldova company's financial situation has not improved, while the announced goals of the privatization have not been achieved", he said.

The MP concluded that the transaction was conducted non-transparently with complete inaction of responsible bodies and on illegal basis.

"There are sufficient prerequisites for starting the process of canceling the privatization contract, for confiscating the invested funds from suspicious sources and attracting to responsibility of those involved in this transaction, with repayment of compensations to the state which had to suffer from their actions", Munteanu said.

Also, the Parliament's decision contains recommendations to the Prosecutor General's Office (PGO) and the National Anti-Corruption Center (NACC) to consider the observance of legislation by heads of state agencies in the process of preparing and privatizing the airlines and to take proper measures, if necessary.

Infotag's dossier: The Air Moldova was privatized in October 2018 by the company Civil Aviation Group SRL - the only participant in the contest. It was founded on August 23, 2018 by the Blue Air (the Romania's largest low-cost airlines) and two Moldovan citizens. The Blue Air was owner of 49% in the new company, while 51% belong to Moldovan citizens Sergiu Melnic and Andrei Ianovici - 25.5% each.