Legislation concerning presents for civil servants is not implemented

The amendments made to the Law on the Conflict of Interests and the Civil Servant’s Code of Conduct are not implemented even if they took effect over half a year ago, Info-PrimNeo reports. The changes that were adopted by Parliament in 2011 came into force at the end of May. Under them, every public institution must keep a register where the servants should indicate what presents they received. For the time being, neither the Presidential Office nor Parliament has such registers. Sources in the Government couldn’t give a definite answer whether they have such a register or not, arguing that the person in charge is on sick leave. After the legislative amendments concerning the presents for civil servants were adopted, the Government was to formulate and approve the normative documents needed for implementation within three months of the publication of the changes. But this didn’t happen. The Ministry of Justice drafted regulations regarding the monitoring, keeping, utilization and recovery of presents and submitted them to the Government for approval on July 31. According to the draft regulations, the civil servants can keep the symbolic presents, the protocol presents and those offered out of politeness that are worth less than 1,000 lei. Such gifts as medals, decorations, insignia, orders and scarves can be accepted regardless of their price. The President’s adviser on communication Vlad Turcanu has told Info-Prim Neo that they did not need to keep such a register as Nicolae Timofti received no present that should be declared since the amendments took effect. He stressed that it is impossible for the employees of the Presidential Office to accept presents. The regulations drafted by the Ministry of Justice provide for the constitution of a present assessment and monitoring commission consisting of three members within every institution. The commission must publish the list of presents and the recipients on the institution’s website every year. The civil servant who received a present is obliged to inform the commission about this within seven days of the receipt. The gift is presented together with an application where there is written the name of the recipient and of the person who offered it and his contact data, the description of the gift, the purpose for which it was offered and its approximate price. The National Integrity Commission (NIC) is the authority empowered to monitor the implementation of the Law on the Conflicts of Interest. The Commission’s chairman Anatolie Donciu told Info-Prim Neo that no steps have been taken in this respect yet as the NIC hasn’t finished the organizational process.