Results of MOLICO project depend on how authorities fulfill their commitments, European expert

The results of the joint project of the European Commission and the Council of Europe against corruption, money laundering and terrorist financing in Moldova (MOLICO) implemented in Moldova since 2006 depend greatly on how the power fulfills its commitments, said Alexander Seger, the head of the economic crime fighting division of the Council of Europe Directorate General of Human Rights and Legal Affairs. At a news conference held to mark the end of the project on July 10, he said that Moldova has yet a lot of work to do, including improving the corruption perception index, Info-Prim Neo reports. Seger said that though Moldova made extraordinary progress during the last few years, it should also improve the money laundering punishment mechanism. “You should analyze this situation very well and ponder why so few culprits are punished,” he told Moldovan officials responsible for this area. The European expert also recommended improving the Code of Administrative Offenses. Alexandr Seger also said that Moldova has problems as regards electoral corruptibility, the population’s trust in the system and the investigation of this aspect. “Institutions are created, but they do not examine the people’s perception of corruption,” he said, voicing hope that Moldova will continue implementing the projects initiated with the support of MOLICO. The European expert’s opinion was supported by the director general of the Marketing and Polling Institute (IMAS) Doru Petruti, who, referring to the second national poll on corruption perception, said that the mentality of the population has not changed, with 70% of Moldovans declaring that corruption is deep-rooted in the society. Lilia Carashchuk, executive director of Transparency International – Moldova, said that the Moldovan authorities implemented many laws as part of the MOLICO project, but many times they did not take into account the recommendations of the organization that she represents. She invoked the law on the financing of political parties, saying that certain recommendations made by TI-Moldova were not taken into consideration and therefore even NGOs were inspected after the April 5 elections, suspected of financing parties. The secretary of the Central Election Commission Iurie Ciocan, the anticorruption prosecutor and head of the coordinating group Boris Poiata and representatives of the judiciary system of Moldova said they are pleased with the results achieved under MOLICO, stressing there should be a MOLICO II project. For their part, the foreign officials said that they cooperated fruitfully with the Moldovan authorities and a number of anticorruption documents were adopted as part of MOLICO, including the law on the conflict of interests, risk assessment methodology and the strategy for combating money laundering. The MOLICO project in Moldova was launched on August 1, 2006. It had two components – anticorruption, and money laundering and terrorist financing - and was implemented with financial support from the European Commission, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency and the Council of Europe. Its cost was 3.5 million euros.