Heated debates on the banking fraud occurred in the talk show “Reply” on Prime TV channel. Socialists said the burden of repaying the stolen US$ 1 billion is borne by the people, while Democrats said the covering of the stolen funds by state guarantees does not directly affect the people, IPN reports.
Socialist MP Vlad Batrincea said the stolen funds are a public debt and if the law enforcement agencies do not recover this money, each citizen will feel this debt through taxes and the absence of social policies. “No money was recovered from those transferred abroad, but we know very well and the Kroll I report confirmed it that most of the money went abroad,” he stated. According to the MP, instead of using this money to support the socially deprived groups of people and modifying the social spending, the state has to pay for what was stolen.
Democratic MP Sergiu Sirbu noted that if the repayment of this debt had been made the people’s burden, the income tax would have been raised and the salaries, benefits and pensions wouldn’t have been increased. Also, the state budget revenues wouldn’t have grown by almost 30% during the last two years. The debt to the National Bank became a public one, but it is repaid not at the expense of the people, but from the Bank’s dividends and from internally recovered amounts.
Analyst Corneliu Ciurea said the banking fraud could not be removed from the agenda of the day in an electoral year even if the Democratic Party cannot be blamed directly for this. The responsibility of the ruling party is huge and this party is obliged to provide answers.
