STANDING COMMITTEE APPROVES BILL ON REPEALING LAW ON RETURN OF “THE STOLEN BILLION”

The parliamentary Standing Committee for Economy, Budget and Finance approved on Wednesday a bill on annulling the Law on the order of returning of the US$1 billion equivalent stolen from the Moldovan banking system. The bill stipulates annulment of the 2016 Law on transforming into a national debt the time credits issued by the National Bank of Moldova (NBM) to three problematic commercial banks in 2014-2015.

The bill, drafted by Socialist MPs, was supported by a majority of the Standing Committee members, though through the skeptical attitude shown by opposition representatives.

“It is not correct and unfair to place on the grassroots the burden of repaying the money stolen from the commercial banks”, stated Socialist Petru Burduja, a bill author.

The bill stipulates the working out of measures for resolving the debt problem being faced by Banca de Economii [savings bank], Banca Sociala and Unibank towards the National Bank, which had issued 14.2 billion lei in credits to the three banks.

The adoption of the Law on converting the NBM credits into a national debt was one of the conditions set by the International Monetary Fund before the Moldovan authorities because the NBM issued the said 14.2 billion lei on a security of the Government.