Government keeps silent over Mocanu – Plahotniuc case because it is incompetent or sold, Plugaru and Petrache

Former Minister of Security Anatol Plugaru and the president of the Centrist Union of Moldova Mihai Petrache, in a joint news conference on September 3, said the Government of Moldova keeps silent over the Mocanu - Plahotniuc case because it is incompetent and/or sold. According to them, the behavior of the representatives of the governing alliance shows the politicians “could be bought by the corrupt and criminalized system of Moldova”, Info-Prim Neo reports. “The power should not remain silent. All the people now became spectators and if the government coalition does not clarify these things before the elections, it will be hard to say who can become President,” Anatol Plugaru said. He believes the power should take attitude, even if the accusations made by former presidential adviser Sergiu Mocanu against businessman Vlad Plahotniuc are not true. “It is not serious when a head of state says that the Mocanu-Plahotniuc scandal is a settling of accounts. It is strange that Ghimpu reacted only two weeks later and convoked the Supreme Security Council. It is also regrettable when a Prime Minister that is considered a contrabandist says that he will not get involved in this scandal,” Plugaru said. He also said that the Prosecutor’s Office, the Center for Combating Corruption and Economic Crime (CCCEC) and other bodies should have launched investigations into this case, but they preferred to wait for the Acting President to convene the Supreme Security Council. Mihai Petrache also considers the present administration is unable to take attitude in this case. He said this scandal might be used as an electoral instrument. Anatol Plugaru believes Vlad Plahotniuc is not the only businessman who earned his property by illegal means. “The power keeps silent because they are afraid. Who are Filat, Lupu, Urecheanu, Ghimpu in this case if they do not want to get involved?” Plugaru asked. Mihai Petrache and Anatol Plugaru say the present administration should immediately create a special parliamentary commission of inquiry that would examine the spread scandal, or at least an ordinary parliamentary commission that would transmit the collected evidence to the Prosecutor’s Office and courts. They added the special commission of inquiry will be obliged to respond to people’s questions by the November elections. They also consider there should be set up a governmental commission that would reassess the qualifications of the employees of the CCCEC and establish if the property of the prosecutors, judges and CCCEC officers corresponds to their salaries. The Government should also create a consultative council for the President and Prime Minister and a public tribunal composed of specialists (prosecutors, judges, officers) with irreproachable reputation and politically unaffiliated. Anatol Plugaru and Mihai Petrache say the Prosecutor General and the CCCEC head should be suspended from posts for the period of the investigations. “A hotline must be set up that the people could use to report cases of corruption, preserving their anonymity. The law enforcement bodies should weekly present reports on the situation in the area,” they said.