The freshly installed general director of the Customs Office says that the salaries of his employees “can and must” increase significantly as part of an anticorruption effort.

“There is always a risk that a customs officer getting a low salary will yield to the temptation of hundreds of thousands or millions of lei that he or she is exposed to”, Vitalie Vrabie told a talk show on the public television channel Moldova 1.

He thinks this should be done without delay, even despite the ongoing economic crisis, or rather as a step to overcome it, with revenue expected to increase as a result.

“We are now working to reorganize the system. We have a road-map for a month and a half and during this period exactly we should propose solutions to increase salaries for the Customs Service functionaries. This would justify all the planned job cuts and all the requirements, integrity-related in particular, asked of the Customs Service officers”, said Vitalie Vrabie.

Another argument cited by Vrabie was the Customs Service's size of contribution to the State Budget. “If 1,728 officers currently employed each day collect 70, 80 million lei or more, and this translates to 60 percent of the State Budget, then we should ask ourselves how many they should be. While I admit that their number could be reduced, the motivation they receive should be adequate. Because this is a very responsible job, very hard and exposed to many risks. We are discussing this and I believe solutions will be found, since this is the international norm and practice. I hope the Cabinet and Parliament will decide to allocate these funds from the taxes collected by the Customs Service”.

Vitalie Vrabie went on to suggest that the customs officers worked hard for the raise, especially in the recent period: “While January ended with 79 million lei behind the target, in March, we had a surplus of 9.7% or 137 million lei. Or, in the first 10 days of April the Service collected by 92 million lei, or 27.5 percent more than in the similar period last year”.