Moldovan public institutions have made significant progress in implementing the anti-corruption activities within the Country Threshold Program (CTP), funded by the US Government with $24.7 million. However, a number of institutions did not reach up to the expectations, recording considerable hardships in some key sectors, shows the last quarterly report of the monitoring Anti-Corruption Alliance, an association joining NGOs, Info-Prim Neo reports. “It would not be true yo say that the CTP has not been implemented by the Government. Rather big efforts have been made, the governmental agency have benefited from backing from US institutions, hired by the US Government to help the Moldovan Government,” Alliance's secretary Mircea Esanu told media Tuesday after presenting the report. However there is a whole row of arrears, which do not depend on the monitored institutions. “They refer to the laws which should have been passed by the Government and the Parliament. Some others are related to the companies hired to develop some software,” said Mircea Esanu. An example here is the judiciary system, for which a Financing Concept was drafted to ensure the financial independence of the judiciary, but it has not yet been endorsed by the Government. A big part of the reforms in the healthcare system within the CTP have been accomplished. Many of the activities unachieved need legal and institutional changes which are delayed. On the other hand, since the necessary software has not been developed, over a half of the planned activities in the tax reform are postponed. In Esanu's opinion, the most remarkable success was reached in the medicare system. “While the Interior Ministry and the Economic Crimes and Corruption Combating Center (ECCCC) continued activities started earlier, the Health Ministry started from level zero and drafted a guide for public procurements, web pages for its entities and developed the national clinical protocols. That is why the Health Ministry deserves the highest appreciations within the CTP,” said the secretary. The Anti-Corruption Alliance has noticed improvements in the reforms carried out by the Customs Service. Most of its 27 planned items have been accomplished. The same thins is valid for the Interior Ministry, which carried out 35 of its 39 tasks. Although the anti-corruption squad (ECCCC) has achieved but two-thirds from the CTO activities, a poll carried out by Transparency International shows a positive trends in the public perceiving the ECCCC. Apart from monitoring the success of the CTP reforms, the Alliance gave an average mark (4.1 points) to the willingness of the monitored institutions to cooperate with the civil society in the 4th quarter of 2008. It's the highest scoring during the monitoring session, on a 5-point scale. The monitored institutions have appreciated the efforts of the civil society in their turn. CTP national coordinator Valeriu Balaban says “this monitoring means the civil society has actively involved in preventing and fighting corruption.” “The NGOs monitoring within the CTP has been a provisory mechanism of involving the civil society into monitoring the work of the public agencies. Now the state has a duty to transform this mechanism into a permanent tool. A first sample in this respect is the Civil Council of monitoring the ECCCC, recently created. I am sure this mechanism will be adopted by other public institutions,” Balaban said. Through the CTP, the Moldovan Government committed to continue, with the support of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), the reforms to curb corruption in five sectors: strengthening the judiciary's capacity in preventing and fighting corruption, strengthening the monitoring capacity of the civil society and media, preventing and fighting corruption in healthcare, tax management, customs and police, reforming and improving the ECCCC's work. The Anti-Corruption Alliance's monitoring is part of the Strengthening Civil Society Monitoring Capacity Program, implemented by the Academy for Educational Development (AED). The program is funded by the MCC and run by USAID within the CTP.