Natalia Nirca: Corruption in Moldova is fought only in election campaigns. Info-Prim Neo poll

{Info-Prim Neo News Agency is conducting an opinion poll among leaders of the parties running in elections. The subject of the poll is corruption in Moldova and solutions for fighting it. All the participants were asked two similar questions. This time, the answers are given by Natalia Nirca, president of the Conservative Party.} [ - What does the party that you represent think about corruption in Moldova?] - Unfortunately, corruption in Moldova is fought only during election campaigns and remains forgotten there. Nowadays, corruption flourishes in the government and became for many a profitable business. All these years of Communist government saw appropriations of funds, cases of laundering public money, of favoring the economic entities that support the ruling party, of distributing the best state orders without tender contests to people close to the power. We do not have yet investigated cases of corruption involving high-ranking state officials. Inefficiency is the key word that characterizes the current system for combating corruption. The present Government only pretends to be engaged in the fight against corruption, showing complete lack of will to combat this scourge. The work of the anticorruption bodies does not produce the projected results because these bodies are full of corrupt persons. [ - What will the Conservative Party do to combat corruption if it comes to power?] - The combating of corruption in state bodies must be a priority for the future Parliament and a central preoccupation for the future Government. We are firmly convinced that this phenomenon can be rooted out only when the doctors, teachers and functionaries are paid decent salaries. The Conservative Party suggests: - fighting corruption by legislative methods and efficiently implementing the laws; - wiping out high-level corruption; - making the incomes earned by civil servants and statesmen transparent; - formulating a National Anticorruption Policy; - working to achieve real results in the fight against large-scale corruption. The law enforcement bodies should step up the activities aimed at identifying corruption cases among high-ranking officials, while the legal system should impose on them the punishments they deserve. Only a powerful and independent justice can severely punish corruption. The following measures should be taken for the purpose: toughen up the criminal punishments for corruption by modifying the penal legislation so as to make the minimum punishment for acts of corruption harsher; obligatorily punish corruption with imprisonment and with the deprivation of the right to hold posts in state bodies; increase salaries in the budgetary sphere; widely cover corruptor cases through mass media; launch extensive media campaigns to raise awareness of the risks, costs and negative effects of corruption and promote everybody’s responsibility for fighting this destructive phenomenon; introduce legislative amendments to control and punish the civil servants that do not declare the property and real incomes or declare only their personal incomes, not yet of the family; create a functional inspection body that would verify the income statements of the civil servants and follow how they accumulated the property and incomes from the start of the career; establish cooperation relations between the law enforcement bodies at all the stages: investigation, prosecution, hearing of corruption cases; teach the civil servants not to tolerate and accept corruption in order to prevent acts of corruption; ensure full transparency in the use of public finances, starting from the collection of incomes to spending. In all these efforts, we must count on a professional, impartial and independent judiciary when investigating corrupt functionaries and recovering the illegally obtained goods.