​SCAPEGOAT FOUND FOR CASINO SCANDAL CASE, LIBERAL MP WRITES

The ruling Coalition for Pro-European Governance (CEG) has found a scapegoat to be used in the scandalous “casino case”, which affair inflicted a 6-million-lei damage to the country’s State Budget, and this scapegoat is Andrei Conisescu, former consultant to the parliamentary Standing Committee for Economic Policy, Budget and Finance, MP Valeriu Munteanu, L, wrote in his blog today.

The deputy is sure that the real responsible for the scandal and damage is Committee Chairman Veaceslav Ionita, LD, “under whose chairmanship in 2010 the Committee introduced amendments that created favorable conditions for casino owners”.

“The parliamentary investigation commission has established that Veaceslav Ionita exceeded powers by sending to the Government, on behalf of the Parliament, a bill in which he agreed to the Government-offered amendments having qualified them as a Parliament’s decision. Besides this, the said commission demanded from then-Speaker of Parliament Marian Lupu to consider the legitimacy of Ionita’s holding the Committee Chairman’s post”, wrote Valeriu Munteanu.

He also held that the prosecutors, who investigated this case in various periods, were refusing to run the case because they invariably arrived at same conclusions as did the parliamentary investigation commission.

“So, Conisescu was made a scapegoat. Though consultants do not hold public posts, the investigators are demanding to sentence him to 6-10 years, and the ruling coalition will thus come unscathed out of the battle and continue preparing for elections”, wrote the opposition parliamentarian.

Infotag’s dossier: In the summer of 2010, the Moldovan Parliament passed a number of amendments to the Law on Entrepreneurial Activities, which regulates inter alia the activities of casinos in Moldova. A few months later, the Government addressed the Parliament with an inquiry concerning the mistake pertaining to taxation of gambling tables at casinos, which was lowered to 180,000 per a table per annum, though the Government approved a tax of 360,000 lei/table. The Parliament eventually corrected the mistake, but during the 6 months of the wrong rate in force, the State Budget short-received 6 million lei.