About US$ 70 billion from Russian banks were laundered through the agency of Moldovan courts of law and banks in 2010-2014, using illegal court judgements passed in cases centering on alleged debts. In the period, the surveillance and prosecution authorities subdued by the political elites intentionally ignored the suspicious activities, while the Constitutional Court and Parliament approved legislative amendments and decisions to facilitate money laundering, says a study of the Russian Laundromat conducted by Watchdog.md Community and Transparency International Moldova. Transparency International Moldova executive director Lilia Carasciuc said there was a chain of considerable crimes. “US$ 20 billion is also a very large sum for Moldova, but US$ 70 billion is the Gross Domestic Product of the Republic of Moldova for over ten years. The competent bodies couldn’t have omitted such large-scale transactions,” she stated, noting the competent bodies acted this way because they were accomplices to these frauds. Lilia Carasciuc added the appetite for easy gains when you control the state institutions, including the Constitutional Court, the Supreme Council of Magistracy, the National Anticorruption Center and the National Bank of Moldova, increases limitlessly. Moreover, instead of being held accountable, these persons are promoted to higher posts.
The ambiguous political context offers the Democrats time for restructuring the networks without definitively renouncing the active presence on the Moldovan political arena and its influencing , political pundit Dionis Cenușa said in a feature for IPN entitled “Surrendering oligarchic regime, re-launching of European integration in Moldova and Russia’s agenda”. The Democrats could aim to destabilize the ACUM-PSRM coalition, including with such initiatives as no-confidence motions against President Igor Dodon, who can be accused of promoting the interests of Russia, concluded the author.
The head of the parliamentary group of the Democratic Party Pavel Filip said the parliamentary group of the PDM will be in opposition to all those who will violate the Constitution and the country’s laws, will encroach upon the European values.
According to President Igor Dodon, the former government suffered a resounding defeat, but hasn’t left for good. It stays hidden in all the state institutions, the police, the public administration and aims to take revenge as swiftly as possible. For the new government to strengthen itself and resist, a moratorium should be imposed for a period on ideological and geopolitical subjects that divide society. He noted the key task is to ensure cardinal changes in the justice sector, economy and the social sphere. The Moldovans should know that criminal cases will no longer be opened when a party chief or a high-ranking official asks for this. The entrepreneurs should be sure that there will be no criminal cases fabricated to appropriate their businesses or to eliminate opponents.
Prime Minister Maia Sandu calls upon the people to denounce crimes committed by the Plahotniuc regime. In a news conference on June 17, she said the regime committed a lot of abuses and many of these are known, but even more remain unknown. “Until we ensure the independence of prosecutors, I urge you to have confidence in us. We will soon announce the number of a helpline for all the persons who have proofs about the crimes committed by Plahotniuc and persons close to him, about the influence exerted by these, about dismissals for the simple reason that the people didn’t want to go to an event organized by the PDM or took part in a protest against the Plahotniuc regime to furnish these to us,” stated Maia Sandu.
Commissioner for European Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn welcomed the peaceful transition of power and congratulated Prime Minister Maia Sandu on the steps she had already taken to start delivering on her Government’s reform agenda. He called the Prime Minister of the Republic of Moldova to discuss the latest developments in the country, IPN reports, quoting a press release of the European Commission. He confirmed to the Prime Minister that substantial EU support and advice can be rapidly mobilized once the conditions are met and the new government delivers for citizens, including on economy and when it comes to the respect of the rule of law, judicial reform and ensuring media plurality.
Prime Minister Maia Sandu, when introducing the new Minister of Health, Labor and Social Protection to the Ministry’s staff, said merging health and labor into one ministry was a bad idea. “This decision that I consider uninspiring should be corrected,” stated the Premier, noting two distinct ministries should deal with health and labor.
The main task of the new Minister of Finance Natalia Gavrilița is to restore foreign financing and to take structural measures that would improve the efficiency of public spending and would create conditions for growing the economy.
As a result of press reports about substantial withdrawals of funds from the accounts of companies with state-owned capital, the central bank said additional measures were taken as part of the regime to monitor international transfers. It uses informatics services of providers of financial delivery services that refer to particular categories of information that is obtained or processed by licensed banks. “These services cover the access to data about international transfers,” runs the bank’s press release.
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