A number of 50 persons are to be employed in the customs system at a contest that will take place this month instead of the customs officers who were suspended from post or left voluntarily, the director of the Customs Service Vitalie Vrabie stated in the program “Fabrika” on Publika TV channel, IPN reports.

Vitalie Vrabie said the major goal is to fight smuggling and corruption in the customs system, but starting from zero is not possible. “We cannot fire all the customs officers. Most of them are good professionals and are honest. But about 5% of the employees annually leave the system. Instead of these, we hire young professionals on a contest basis,” he stated.

According to Vrabie, the low salaries are a cause that makes customs officers accept bribe. “To avoid cases of corruption, we resorted to a periodic rotation of staff and the employees are transferred from one post to another. But the low salaries do not enable them to satisfy their needs. The customs officers must have appropriate salaries so as not to be tempted to take bribe,” he stated.

On October 1, 28 officers of the customs posts Palanca, Tudora and Bender were arrested by officers of the National Anticorruption Center on suspicion of passive corruption. These are accused of implementing different schemes to illegally collect taxes in the clearance process.