The director of the National Blood Transfusion Center Svetlana Cebotari, who was arrested on June 7 this year, favored companies at public tender contests to purchase consumables and parapharmaceutical products, IPN reports, quoting the Ministry of Home Affairs.

The rapid tests used to detect hepatitis, syphilis and HIV at the first triage stage must be bought by tender contest. The necessity of such tests is significant. Over 25,000 tests are needed monthly, but there are not many suppliers of such tests in Moldova.

A company shipped the tests needed at the first triage stage, but representatives of the Center avoided signing the documents confirming the delivery of tests to the value of over 1 million lei. As a result, the company sued the Center. In the trial, the Center’s director presented false documents to show that tests were being used from the medical reserve, not from the lot supplied by the company that won the tender contest.

It was also determined that the Center’s director helped submit a fake bid and win the tender contest staged by a foreign partner of Moldova. The company favored by the director that won the contest within 100 days was to deliver a plasmapheresis machine assessed at US$18,000 to the Bălți Municipal Hospital. To appropriate the funds from the organizers of the contest, the company’s manager, with the consent of the Center’s director, received a plasmapheresis machine owned by the Center for being presented to the foreign donor and the beneficiaries in the donation ceremony as a machine bought in accordance with the contract.

The director of the National Blood Transfusion Center Svetlana Cebotari, the institution’s jurist and a vice director of the Public Procurement Agency were arrested on June 7. The same day, nine searches were carried out in offices of the Center, at the head office of the business entity, at the medical institution in Bălți and at the head office in Chisinau of a private medical laboratory. There were seized mobile phones, computers, information systems and documents that can serve as evidence.