The corruption tolerated and often encouraged by politicians, the bodies that should fight it and the people lies at the root of all the problems faced by Moldova. Despite the enormous assistance in fighting corruption received by our country from the development partners, Moldova didn’t make considerable headway in this direction, Prime Minister Ion Chicu was quoted by IPN as saying in the National Anticorruption Conference.
According to the Premier, owing to poverty, which is also a consequence of corruption, the people leave the country and this is grave. “I think we should take serious steps to restore the people’s confidence in tomorrow, to industrialize the country, to create jobs and to enhance the people’s welfare. Corruption can be an impediment to all these intentions. We aim to work so as to remove this barrier to the country’s development,” stated Ion Chicu.
Parliament Speaker Zinaida Grechanyi said the authorities are aware that corruption generates poverty, instability and failure. “There were adopted laws to penalize those who give and take bribes. Even so, things do not go well on this segment. We will not allow the culture of impunity to be perpetuated in Moldova. We are a state with the rule of law where the laws should work for all the country’s people,” stated the Speaker. She noted the Parliament’s priority is to fight corruption in all its forms, either it is grand or petty corruption.
Ruslan Flocea, director of the National Anticorruption Center, said that even if the state aligned itself to the high anticorruption standards and chose the irreversible path of elimination of corrupt practices and considerable effort has been made to fight corruption, our society does not fully feel that the state institutions make sufficient effort to change the state of affairs. That’s why the National Anticorruption Center and the public system bear the huge responsibility of changing this perception.
Attending the event, UNDP Resident Representative for the Republic of Moldova Dima Al-Khatib said the National Integrity and Anticorruption Strategy of Moldova for 2017-2020, which was drafted with the UNDP’s support, is adjusted to the Sustainable Development Goals and one of these is to reduce corruption and bribery in all their forms until 2030. It is estimated that US$1 trillion in bribes is annually paid worldwide, whereas US$ 2.6 trillion is annually stolen through corrupt practices. This is equal to over 5% of the global GDP. “These data confirm that corruption undermines development and the attempts to build a better word, affecting directly the vulnerable groups and contributing to instability and poverty,” stated Dima Al-Khatib.
The National Anticorruption Conference was at its 14th edition and was held under the theme “Sector approach to corruption: progress and shortcomings”.
