The Government has been instructed to seek the annulment of the Air Moldova privatization agreement and request damages for the failure to fulfill contractual obligations. This is included in a resolution adopted by Parliament after hearing the final parliamentary inquiry report on the Air Moldova privatization.
“The Inquiry Commission has found that the interest of the state was not duly protected during the tender process through which Air Moldova was privatized, and the contract failed to include sufficient provisions to ensure the fulfillment of the objectives declared by the state. The contract’s form and content are totally inadequate and disproportionate to the goal of privatizing Moldova’s most important airline,” the Commission chair Igor Munteanu told Parliament’s plenary meeting.
Under the resolution, the Government will have to look into why the airline failed to return the previously offered government aid, and probe the role of the public authorities in this.
The Government, the Prosecutor General’s Office, and the National Anticorruption Center are due to report within two months how Parliament’s instructions were acted on.
Prosecutors have already frozen nearly 1 billion lei of Air Moldova’s assets, including statutory capital and two planes, as part of ongoing investigations on charges of money laundering that allegedly occurred during the privatization.
