MP of the Party of Action and Solidarity Radu Marian called on the Prosecutor’s Office and the National Anticorruption Center to stop the public procurement procedure initiated by the Public Services Agency (PSA) for buying blank passports and identity cards, IPN reports. In a press briefing, the MP said a new scheme to rob the citizens of the Republic of Moldova is being planned.

“It goes to a theft from citizens’ pockets when issuing passports and other identification papers. According to information confirmed by a number of sources, today each passport issued to a Moldovan is stolen with 300 lei, which is almost 30% of the price paid for issuing a passport,” said the PAS candidate for MP.

According to Radu Marian, this happens due to a harmful contract signed by the PSA several years ago, when this institution was managed by the men of Plahotniuc. Currently, the men of Dodon, who manage the PSA, want to continue the scheme,” stated the MP.

He noted that on April 26, 2021, the PSA urgently initiated a public procurement procedure to the value of 500 million lei for purchasing 1.5 million blank passports and other types of identification papers even if the Agency had 400,000 available blank passport and cards and these could be used for a year.

According to Radu Marian, the purchase was announced one day after the Constitutional Court gave the green light for organizing the snap parliamentary elections. The Agency’s chiefs hurry as they fear they will not be in power long and need to complete the scheme until a new government comes. The goal is to fix the tender contest so that the same company that delivered blank identity cards during the time of Plahotniuc wins again and continues to steal money from people’s pockets.

In a recently published statement, the PSA says the given public procurement procedure was initiated in 2021, but will be implemented in 2022-2023, with the allocation of the necessary amounts to the PSA budgets for 2022 and 2023 for implementing the contract signed as a result of the tender contest. The necessity of organizing the public procurement procedures in 2021 is procedurally and technologically justified as the given procedures include a set of activities that are to be carried out during at least 12 calendar months.

The Agency denied all the insinuations and suspicions as to the irregularities and abuses allowed in the tendering process. It noted it reserves the right to go to court to defend the institution’s image.