Speaker Igor Grosu says the government has agreed with the opposition that sacking Octavian Armașu from the presidency of the National Bank would not be a good idea given the current economic crisis and the forthcoming renegotiation of the IMF deal.
After being heard in Parliament Thursday, Armașu came under fire from the opposition Communists&Socialists, who introduced a motion of no confidence on him.
"We, too, have questions about the job done by the National Bank, its policy, whether its interventions have been well-timed or not. Here we are on the same wavelength as the opposition, but let’s think about what’s next. Because firing someone is not a problem when there are at least 51 votes. But there are some important events about to take place. Next week the IMF mission is visiting. We will go to Berlin, to the Moldova Support Platform, we will try to convince the IMF of the need to allocate this money for pensions, compensation in agriculture, compensation of public utility costs, which is not at all an easy task”, said Igor Grosu during a talk-show on RliveTV.
The speaker says that the arguments for letting Armașu keep his job have been approved by the opposition, and further objections to the NBM’s work will be discussed in the relevant parliamentary committee.
“The no-confidence motion introduced by (the Communists&Socialists) has been forwarded to the specialty committee, where the NBM president and his team will be invited to be heard so that a levelheaded decision can be made subsequently. I think the opposition has understood that you don’t have to burn the entire house for the sake of a momentary victory. It doesn’t do any good to either the government or the opposition”, Igor Grosu also said.
During his Thursday’s speech, Armașu told Parliament that the central bank has had to sell about $650M of Moldova’s foreign exchange in recent months to contain inflation amid concurrent crises induced by the pandemic, the energy crunch and the war in Ukraine. According to him, the remaining $3.4B should be enough to maintain Moldova’s macrofinancial stability.
