The MP of the Party “Dignity and Truth Platform” (PPPDA) Liviu Vovc said the priority for the ShorDon majority at the end of current Parliament’s mandate is not people’s problems, but the distribution of schemes and promotion of interests. The party will use all the legal ways so as not to allow the bills that were adopted in the December 16 sitting of Parliament to become laws, IPN reports.

“Under the umbrella of the so-called noble idea of easing access to drugs for the population, they proposed creating mobile drugstores, reviewing the method of forming the purchase prices and reducing the profit margin on compensated drugs. I say the so-called because, in reality, they pursue a different goal. In reality, these bills are aimed at creating a monopoly on the pharmaceutical market and at eliminating the cheap drugs from the market and the small individual drugstores,” stated Liviu Vovc. According to him, these stands on wheels will sell in an uncontrolled way any kind of pharmaceutical substances, from antibiotics to anabolic steroids.

“Another amendment bill provides that the prices of compensated drugs will be reduced by limiting and reducing the profit margin for storehouses to 4% and for drugstores to 8%. As a matter of fact, as a result of these changes the compensated drugs will disappear from the shelves of a number of independent drugstores, especially in rural areas and in hospitals. This will happen because the storehouses will be interested in selling compensated medicines only within the own chain of drugstores. If the storehouses sell drugs to individual or hospital drugstores, their revenues will be of only 4%,” explained the MP.

He also said that the most cynical amendment is the one that allows for the removal of the limit on the profit margin on drugs that are sold without prescriptions. This means the vitamins, antivirals, bronchodilators and drugs that are used to treat COVID-19 will be sold in drugstores at the prices these want as the profit margin will no longer be regulated by law.

“The citizens should know that with the adoption of these bills, a number of drugstores will be unable to work and will cease operations. The monopolization of the pharmaceutical market will start. The cheap drugs will disappear from the market, while those that are sold without medical prescriptions will become more expensive,” stated Liviu Vovc.

The bill on mobile drugstores was adopted together with other bills, including the state budget and the budgetary-fiscal policy, in the December 16 sitting of Parliament, close to midnight. The documents were put to the vote without debates, being carried by the votes of the MPs of the Party of Socialists and For Moldova Platform that includes the MPs of the Shor Party. The opposition MPs weren’t present in the assembly hall.