Shortly after his appointment, Prime Minister Pavel Filip promised to do his utmost to recover a part of the money stolen through the ‘theft of the century’ and to install an electronic board for everyone to count the recovered sums. The authors of an article published on sic.md note that almost three months passed since this promise was made, but the board hasn’t yet appeared, IPN reports.
The article says that to improve his image damaged including by the way in which his Cabinet was invested on the night of January 21, Pavel Filip needed to make some persuasive statements and the promise to install the board by which to count the money brought back into the country was one of these.
The first time the ‘board of the billion’ was mentioned in a special edition of the program “Moldova live” on Moldova 1 channel on January 22, 2016. Afterward, the promise was repeated on other occasions. “I even promised to myself and together with my colleagues to set up a billboard where the people could see the recovered sums and count them daily…” stated Pavel Filip.
The authors of the article on sic.md say the idea of having an online instrument by which to report the developments in recovering the stolen billion is actually admirable. But almost three months passed since that promise was made and there is no board yet. “As the principle of accountability is essential for good governance, we think it is a good idea to subject Mister Filip to a countdown until the promised board and, more important, the recovered sums appear,” says the article that even defines a mechanism by which the period since when the promise was made is measured.
The article authors note that the board of the billion is undoubtedly a symbol of the Government’s efforts to recover the lost money. The lack of the promised board thus arouses questions. “Meanwhile, we found out with stupor that the bill for the bank fraud is to be paid by the ordinary people – we will repay together the debts deriving from this fraud during the next 25 years. The legitimate question is: do they look for the billion yet?” ask the authors.
Sic.md is a project of IPN News Agency that is implemented with support from Soros Foundation Moldova.
