Liberal-Democrat and Democrat lawmakers accuse each other of interests on metals market

The members of the Liberal-Democratic and Democratic parliamentary groups accused each other of having interests on the metals market after the bill on the demonopolization of the export of ferrous and non-ferrous metals wasn’t passed in final reading in the last sitting of the spring-summer session as well, Info-Prim Neo reports. The bill is an initiative put forward by the Liberal-Democratic group. The head of the commission on economy, budget and finance Veaceslav Ionita, of the PLDM, said the private interest of some parties of the ruling alliance prevails over the public interest. “We saw what kind of alliance we have. They hurried, violated the procedure and do not even know what they voted for. There were submitted three identical bills and the commission on economy, budget and finance was to decide what the most suitable bill was. It means that we have a ‘non-vote’ to I don’t know what bill,” Veaceslav Ionita said after the Parliament’s sitting. He added the amendments proposed by the Democrats to the bill were like a ‘smoke curtain’ aimed at justifying its ‘non-vote’. Democrat MP Valeriu Guma said the authors of the bill – the Liberal-Democrat MPs –want to transform the metals market into a market controlled by groups of interest and this will have a negative influence on the budget. “The PDM put forward more than 15 amendments and provided arguments for them. We now have a state enterprise that brings significant incomes to the state budget and it should be maintained,” Valeriu Guma told the reporters. He also said that the Democratic group passed the bill in first reading, but refused to vote in favor in second reading as none of their amendments was accepted by the alliance colleagues. The bill on the demonopolization of the export of ferrous and non-ferrous metals was adopted in first reading on July 5. Currently, only the company “Metal Feros” is empowered to export metals. In 2010, the company’s turnover was over 600 million lei. The taxes paid to the state by it amounted to about 46 million lei.