The illegal fees associated with procuring a driving license range from 700 to 1200 euros, and until recently waiting in line for a driving test appointment was a matter of months. This is because dishonest people used to book the appointments to then sell them for illegal fees to legitimate testees. This was revealed at a hearing organized by Parliament’s Security and Public Order Committee.

The new leadership of the Public Services Agency says a solution to improving the testing process is a complete reshuffle of the staff responsible for this, so as to “dismantle the institutional memory on how scheming works”.

Mircea Eșanu, the Agency’s new director, says the waiting time for a drive test has been cut to a month, from four months when he took over in August.

An internal audit, according to Eșanu, has revealed that the implementation of a fair and proper testing system has been intentionally delayed.

The pass rates are low, and Eșanu suggests this is done on purpose so as to create increased demand for test appointments. “A well-greased system has been revealed that made people cough up money to pass the tests. No cash was solicited directly, but there were a million and one ways of disqualifying a future driver, out of ill-will or otherwise”.

According to accounts from those who experienced the system, the illegal fees range from 700 and 1200 euros, at least in the last half a year. “You do the math yourselves. In Chisinau alone, there are around 200 students undergoing testing a day, 600 a week”, said Eșanu, adding that efforts are made to “close a valve” that robs future drivers of 100-300 thousand euros each month.

It has been found that not all the test vehicles are equipped with dash cams to record inside the car, and in others the recording process was being jammed. According to Eșanu, such vehicles were distributed to examiners that were “on good terms” with the bosses.

To prevent this, it has been proposed to create a monitoring center that centralizes the video feeds from all the dash cams. As for legal amendments, it has been proposed to abolish urgent appointments and the territorial principle for testing.