The head of the commission of inquiry that examined the legality of the privatization of Air Moldova said the process of privatizing the state-owned company took place with serious deviations from the norms. Igor Munteanu said the prosecutors were notified of their findings, but there is no end result in this case yet. For their part, representatives of the government admit that the justice sector reform in Moldova is only at the incipient stage, IPN reports.
The chairman of the commission that investigated the way in which Air Moldova was privatized in 2019 said that the company was intentionally led to bankruptcy and was later privatized in a defective way.
“Air Moldova, being an important state-owned company, went through a process of privatization that involved a lot of problems. A number of procedures were violated. Indeed, there is harsh competition for passengers between several companies. Air-Moldova lost the market. Now I think it has less than 30% of the market. Air Moldova received 90 million lei for recovering. After it got this money, in a month the then Premier Filip raised the problem of privatization. Instead of adopting a Government decision on privatization, the Prime Minister put his personal signature. A lot of procedural irregularities were committed. The former Premier assumed responsibilities that cannot be explained from legal viewpoint,” Igor Munteanu stated in the talk show “Black Box” on TV8 channel.
Former Deputy Speaker of Parliament Alexandru Slusari said the privatization of Air Moldova was performed according to a scheme that was based on artificial debts and a defective contest procedure.
“The privatization was arranged for Ilan Șor and his grouping starting with the assessment of 2018 and ending with the privatization method. Instead of being an individual project, as a strategic enterprise should be treated, they held a contest without imposing particular obligations, if only declarative obligations. The goal of the privatization was clear – to rob it further. Ilan Șor always appropriated companies, took what they could through offshore areas together with Plahotniuc and Andronachi and left them to go bankrupt,” stated Alexandru Slusari.
Representatives of the government said the director of the Public Property Agency Eugeniu Cozonac will be requested to report on this case.
“It is evident that the reformation of the prosecution service is at the incipient stage and we do not yet have any results. Seven months have passed since a new director was named at the Public Property Agency and this will be invited to provide a report. We will see if he managed to bring things in order or not,” said PAS MP Vladimir Bolea.
The privatization of Air Moldova was brought back into discussion after passengers who flied to Turkey by a plane operated by Air Moldova got stuck at the airport in Antalya after the Moldovan aircraft was banned from taking off owing to debts. It happened on June 4 and the flights on June 4 and 5 were disrupted.
