Only half of mayors and district heads published income statements

The mayors and district heads do not know that they are obliged to make their income and property statements public. According to a communiqué from the Association of Independent Press (API), only 492 of the 930 local public administration managers submitted the income and property statement for 2011 to the Central Examination Commission and only three of them published them, as the law requires, Info-Prim Neo reports. The three representatives of the local public authorities are Mayor of Chisinau Dorin Chirtoaca, the head of Ialoveni district Nicolae Andronachi and the mayor of Calarasi town Nicolae Melnic. According to the API, some do not know the provisions of the law. For example, the mayor of Cantemir town Roman Ciubaciuc said he did not know that the mayors are obliged to publish their income and property statements. The mayor of Edinet town Constantin Cojocaru did not know it either, but said he will soon publish his statement on the website of the mayor’s office. Some mayors said they sent the income statement to the Central Examination Commission as they did not know they were to publish it. Others said they have time to do it. The law obliges the head of state, the lawmakers, the members of the Government, the head of the Constitutional Court, the president of the Supreme Court of Justice, the prosecutor general, the chairman of the Audit Office, the governor of the National Bank of Moldova, the head of the Security and Information Service, the mayors of towns and villages and the distinct heads to publish their income and property statements within 30 days of the expiration of the term for submitting the statements, in local or national mass media outlets and on the official websites. The deadline is March 1, 2012. According to the information provided by Victoria Cujba, deputy head of the Decentralization Policy Division of the State Chancellery, in Moldova there are 898 mayors and 32 district heads. The Property in Sight campaign is carried out by the Association of Independent Press and the Anticorruption Alliance within the Support to the Activity of the Secretariat of the Anticorruption Alliance Project, with assistance from East-Europe Foundation, from the funds allocated by the Government of Sweden and the Foreign Ministry of Denmark/DANIDA through the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida).