Communist lawmakers tap, leave sitting hall

The MPs of the Communist Party (PCRM) tapped their fingers and feet in Thursday's sitting of the legislative body. Shortly afterward, they left the sitting hall in protest against the adoption of a bill passed by the parliamentary majority in final reading, Info-Prim Neo reports. The bill contains amendments to the law governing the activity of casinos, which define the method of recovering the damage of about 6.5 million lei caused to the state budget by adopting changes to this law last July. According to the Communist lawmaker Grigore Petrenco, the bill adopted on March 17 is justified, but it should' have been passed until the persons to blame for the sustained damage hadn't been identified. Veaceslav Ionita, chairman of the commission for economy, budget and finance who presented the bill, said that the dispute between the Government and the Opposition was provoked by an amendment to this law that was promulgated by the then Head of Parliament Mihai Ghimpu. “The given bill was adopted by Parliament. However, the MPs did not pass the amendment whereby the tax for licensing casinos was decreased from 360,000 to 180,000 lei. The Government appealed the amendment to the Constitutional Court, which declared it unconstitutional last August,” Veaceslav Ionita explained. He also said that in a sitting last week, the MPs adopted a bill that restored the initial tax of 360,000 lei for a gaming table. The bill passed on March 17 describes the legal method for recovering the money that has not been transferred to the state budget from last August. Communist lawmaker Sergiu Sarbu said that the parliamentary majority hides the truth about the responsible persons.”That amendment wasn't approved by the relevant commission, but it is contained in the published law. Thus, the state sustained losses of about 6 million lei. It is not enough to remedy the situation. We must punish those to blame,” he stated. Asked by the press to explain how the bill was promulgated last summer, former Speaker Mihai Ghimpu said that when the bill reached him, it had the signatures of the head of the Parliament's law division, the secretariat's head and of the commission's chairman on it. “I do not bear responsibility for the mistakes contained in the bill. If the signed law does not correspond to the passed law we will create a commission of inquiry to see who changed the content of the law after it was adopted by Parliament,” Mihai Ghimpu said. Head of Parliament Marian Lupu told the journalists that the bill passed on March 17 allows the state to recover the lost money. He said that the errors in the bills are not something of a novelty in the legislature's work. “The Speaker cannot read all the bills and verify all the information. There are a number of officials who put their signatures, confirming the authenticity of the bills. There had been dozens of technical mistakes in 2005-2009, when I held the same post,” Marian Lupu said.