​69 SEARCHES CONDUCTED, 21 PEOPLE SUSPECTED OF CORRUPTION IN HEALTHCARE

21 people are suspected of corruption, 16 of them were detained, while five – have testified in the National Anti-Corruption Center (NACC), announced during Wednesday’s press conference Head of the NACC Department of Criminal Prosecution Bogdan Zumbreanu.

According to him, all of the detainees are suspects in different corruption cases and abuse of power. All of them are current or former public officials, while two are economic agents. Among the detainees are: former health minister Andrei Usatii, Director of the Medicines Agency Alexandru Coman, Director of the Cardiology Institute Vitalie Moscalu, Director of the National Center of Emergency Medicine, Director of the Republican Medical Diagnostic Center Andrei Testemitanu, Director of the Cancer Institute Victor Cernat, businessman Tudor Ceaicovschi.

“All of them are suspected of abuse of power, of getting and giving bribes. The criminal case was started on November 16, 2014. It is about violations in purchasing medical equipment for public health institutions. Two economic agents were giving bribes worth 5% to 10% of the sum of the contract on supplying equipment. The damages on this case made 2758000 lei - the difference between the minimal supply on the tender and the sum of the signed contracts”, said Zumbreanu.

According to him, during the investigation, 15 more criminal cases were started on 20 tenders where equipment totaling 200 million lei were supplied to health institutions.

“Great work has been done on analyzing these tender proposals and the signed contracts. It turned out that economic agents, who have won these tenders, were writing answers to letters of participants, who lost the tender, on behalf of the corresponding health institutions. The printout of the telephone conversations on these cases made around 1000 pages. Each case is analyzed separately, while the prosecutor takes decisions on arresting one or another suspect”, said Zumbreanu, adding that the detaining is not a punishment, but a means of limiting the suspect’s influence upon the investigation process.

He also added that on Wednesday 69 searches were conducted in offices, in houses and cars of suspects.

Zumbreanu said that being minister, Andrei Usatii was giving orders to heads of health institutions about how to conduct tenders and how to ensure that a particular economic agent wins the tender on supplying equipment.