Journalistic investigations revealed a number of irregularities in some of the public procurement contracts, including hidden interests and agreements between economic entities and authorities. In a news conference at IPN, the head of the Journalistic Investigations Center Cornelia Cozonac said some of the winners of the public tender contests made donations to the parties of which the managers of the given public institutions form part.
“The journalists and representatives of the nongovernmental organizations that are monitoring the public procurement process identified a number of violations in the procurement contracts. For example, a tender contest to purchase apples for nurseries was held in Rezina district. This was won by an economic entity from Drochia and the value of the contract was several times higher than the selling price of apples in Rezina. Consequently, the public money was spent irrationally,” stated Cornelia Cozonac.
Another example is the signing of a contract to set up a park in Suruceni village. The journalists found out that only four benches were put up there. “The public money was misused. The economic entity used it for its own purposes and nobody followed how the money was spent,” said Cornelia Cozonac.
In another case, a company based in Rezina signed a contract for planting lawn on both sides of the main street with the local mayor’s office. “The company was to prepare the land and to sow grass, but this didn’t come out. The money was allocated and the costs are indicated in reports, but the grass wasn’t actually sowed,” said the head of the Journalistic Investigations Center.
She added that the law enforcement bodies do not often react to such violations. “We inform the law enforcement bodies and provide them with the results of our investigations, but the started cases are not brought to an end owing to corruption. These bodies include few specialists and this problem is also related to the unfinished justice sector reform,” stated Cornelia Cozonac.
Currently, the Association for Efficient and Responsible Government and the Journalistic Investigations Center are implementing the project “Public money is my money too”. This is a two-year project to monitor public procurement by 30 national contracting authorities, ten of which are central ones, while 20 are local ones. These are monitored by ten NGOs.
The project is financed by the European Union. It envisions also journalistic investigations.
