The Democratic Party’s candidate for President Marian Lupu promised recently that he will attract tens of times more development sources. The authors of a new article on sic! note that it is not very clear what he means when he says development sources, but ‘tens of times more’ sounds impressively. “However, how deliverable is this promise in light of the last report on the use of European funds in the Republic of Moldova?” wonder the authors of the article quoted by IPN.
In a speech on his appointment as a candidate for the office of President last week, Marian Lupu announced his priorities and the priorities of the Democratic Party for Moldova. He said that “we must ensure a thrice rise in welfare, economy and jobs”, while the second sentence included growths of “tents of times”. “Simple calculations show that the Republic of Moldova received the largest development assistance from the EU member states and the Western states. Financial support, technology, projects. We must confirm and amplify our course and attract tens of times more development sources,” stated the Democratic candidate.
Recently, the European Court of Auditors published a report on the management of the EU funds in Moldova, the main conclusion being that “the EU faces significant challenges in implementing assistance for Moldova”. “The combination of political and macroeconomic instability, weak governance and public administration significantly reduces the European Commission’s leverage to encourage reform,” says the report. This also describes several cases of assistance implementation. One of them refers to the discouraging result of a course on EU funds management, staged for 24 Government functionaries. These were tested to see their knowledge of EU assistance implementation at the beginning of the course and scored an average of 3.2 points out of 10. After six days of training, on the final test, the civil servants got an average of 3.9 points out of 10. Moreover, in some of the areas the performance of the Moldovan functionaries became even poorer during the course.
The day the report was published, September 1, the power’s candidate for President announced that his priority is to increase this assistance ‘tens of times’. The authors of the sic! article wonder if, leaving aside the fact that Marian Lupu wasn’t informed by his colleagues from the Government about the report publication date and the content of the ‘devastating’ report, can this priority still be achieved in light of this report.
Meanwhile, the party colleague of Marian Lupu, Speaker of Parliament Andrian Candu, also found out from the European Court of Auditors’ report that the EU money is poorly managed in Moldova. He scheduled a meeting with officials in charge from a number of state institutions to discuss the report for September 7.
sic! is a project of IPN News Agency that is implemented with the financial assistance of Soros Foundation.
