The heads of the district education division of Chisinau were suspended from posts for the period of the investigation initiated by the municipal authorities following the incident at kindergartens. In the November 28 meeting of officials of Chisinau services and divisions, Mayor Dorin Chirtoaca said only the functionaries who will turn out to have no connection with the rigging of bidding as a result of which spoiled food products were supplied to kindergartens will return to posts, IPN reports.
The mayor said he earlier repeatedly raised the issue of alimentation in schools and kindergartens and warned the education functionaries not to violate the law as they will be penalized. The commission of inquiry headed by the Health Division’s head Mihai Moldovanu will establish if the functionaries were involved in bid rigging. This will complete its work in the middle of December.
Head of the General Division of Education, Youth and Sport Tatiana Nagnibeda-Tverdohleb said she is not involved and should not be blamed for the irregularities identified within this case. She is ready to bear responsibility for particular things that she omitted, but not as a component part of these violations.
Tatiana Nagnibeda-Tverdohleb also said that control groups involving parents should be set up to monitor the delivery of products to kindergartens so that no such cases repeat again.
Last week, 16 persons, nine of whom public servants of education divisions, were arrested by anticorruption officers on suspicion of involvement in the fixing of bids for purchasing food products for Chisinau schools and kindergartens. It was determined that particular business entities were favored in the public procurement process. In order to make a higher profit, these supplied products of a lower quality. A number of children were hospitalized with food poisoning, according to the National Anticorruption Center.
