The resignations tendered by the managers of the Moldovan Railways (CFM) and the Chisinau International Airport (CIA) leave these companies without administration and in a state of “crisis and chaos”, in an economy that “touches the bottom in the Republic of Moldova”, said CUB chairman Igor Munteanu, who considers that the two resignations are not separate incidents, are not exceptions and reflect a systemic crisis and should be treated as such, IPN reports.
In a Facebook post, Igor Munteanu notes that CFM and CIA are systemic companies. They were both brought back under new management after long crises linked to the cancellation of the flawed concession (in the case of CIA) and the economic and administrative chaos at CFM. The situation of state-owned companies continues to worsen in Moldova.
As a rule, the key problems faced by the state-owned companies are related to their excessive indebtedness. It also goes to political clientelism, unfair competition and poor quality of the offered services offered. Most of the times, state-owned companies continue to provide services below the average quality on the market, at low, at noncompetitive rates, knowing that they can always be saved by the state. Problems continue to pile up and the manager’s role in taking these companies out of their vegetative state is decreasing drastically.
The resignations of the two directors are not mere accidents, but point to serious unresolved systemic problems in the economy of Moldovan state-owned enterprises. They both wanted to tell the press that they were leaving of their own free will, but said that there were some major constraints that prevented them from honoring their obligations.
The CIA manager invoked “excessive bureaucracy and lack of effective skills”, while the CFM manager indicated “the inconsistency of visions on risks, priorities and actions between the political class and corporate circles, in other words, a conflict between government preferences (political) and management’s (technocratic) vision to make the company profitable. Both argued that decisions are taken extremely slowly in the areas they managed, inconsistently, while interference from the regulatory bodies leaves managers out of any protection.
The chairman of the Coalition for Unity and Wellbeing (CUB) argued that the resignations point to the lack of reform in the corporate governance sector, lack of managers, lack of visions and policies, poor transparency, poor enforcement of laws, which would eliminate excessive bureaucracy and political clientelism. Igor Munteanu considers that the resignations of the two managers illustrate the extremely poor efficiency of agencies dealing with the economy and the management of state property in the Republic of Moldova (Public Property Agency, Ministry of Economy, Ministry of Finance, Competition Council, etc.), but the economy is a top priority for a democratic and responsible government.
