The National Anticorruption Center determined that the food safety area managed by the National Food Safety Agency is exposed to a number of corruption risks. An assessment of the institutional integrity carried out at NFSA revealed risks of active and passive corruption, abuse of power, falsification of public documents and non-declaring of the conflict of interest, IPN reports, quoting a conclusion of the Center.
The authors of the assessment determined that a number of NFSA inspectors were involved in integrity incidents in the period between 2019 and the first nine months of this year. This is proven by the large number of criminal cases (31) started by NAC in the period and by the results of professional integrity tests taken during the assessment process.
The Chisinau Court’s judgment of June 26, 2021 shows that only 23% of the tested employees of NFSA passed professional integrity tests, while the assessment report reveals that the sums of money accepted by inspectors who had a corrupt behavior varied between 200 and 2,000 lei.
Simultaneously, the integrity tests pointed to inaction to carry out inspections at the scene, issuing of permissive documents without the commercial space being appropriately laid out, inaccuracies in inspection proceedings, obtaining of money for issuing permissive documents, inefficiency of the inspection quality monitoring system and absence of a mechanisms for monitoring the management of noncompliant food products.
NAC formulated a series of recommendations for NFSA to remove the identified corruption risks. The Agency’s manager is advised to adopt an integrity plan whose implementation will be later monitored by NAC.
In a press release, the National Food Safety Agency says that it took note of the report compiled by NAC and will swiftly take measures to finish the reorganization of its local food safety subdivisions based on meritocracy and integrity principles. The professional integrity of the personnel will be assessed so as to increase the level of responsibility in the fulfillment of their duties. An integrity plan will be worked out based on the recommendations include in the report.
