PARLIAMENT INVESTIGATES NONTRANSPARENT PRIVATIZATION

The creation of a parliamentary commission on investigating the conditions of privatization and concession of important governmental institutions since 2013 was approved by most of MPs on Tuesday.

One of bill authors, Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS) Secretary Sergiu Litvinenco said that the process of de-nationalization and giving into concession of the strategically important enterprises such as Banca de Economii, Tutun CTC, the Chisinau Airport and others was organized non-transparently and raises legitimate suspicions.

“The privatization of the most important enterprises should be economically justified and should be implemented exclusively in national interests. The commission will check how correct the concluded agreements were”, he said.

PAS deputy Dumitru Alaiba said that the investigation of questionable transactions was conducted not by profile bodies, but exclusively the press and nongovernmental organizations. It is due to them it was discovered how serious violations have been committed in this field.

“We are not against the privatizations, many state enterprises really lacked efficient management. However, the transactions should be transparent and should be concluded on fair conditions. It is for this a commission is formed to establish correctness of processes of privatization and concession”, the politician said.

MP Dumitru Diacov of the Democratic Party said that DP also wants to clarify the situation, thus they will support the initiative.

Deputy Igor Munteanu of the “Demnitate si Adevar” [DA, “Dignity and Justice”] Party said that by this step the Parliament will support the Government in de-oligarchization of Moldova to destroy the corrupt to the core, hypocritical and immoral system.

Chairman of the PSRM faction Vlad Batrincea said that the regime was acting according to the principle “state cannot be an efficient manager”.

“It is on these grounds the majority package in the Banca de Economii, whose market price was estimated to at least 1 billion lei, was sold at a much smaller price. The same happened to the Tutun CTC, privatized for 160 million lei less than the real cost. Thus, the work of the commission is highly important – no investor will come to the country where state enterprises are allowed to be robbed. This means that these enterprises should be returned to the country and their profit should be directed to fulfillment of the most important provisions of the socio-economic program”, the Socialist said.

The Commission will be made of 7 people. It will be headed by “Demnitate si Adevar” Party MP Igor Munteanu. It will also include Vlad Batrincea and Petru Burduja (of the PSRM), Nicolae Ciubuc and Igor Vremea (of the DP), Radu Marian (of the PAS) and one representative of the Ilan Shor Party, who was absent from the sitting today.