New Government’s priorities as seen by independent analysts
The independent analytical center “Expert-Grup” formulated ten priorities that it considers should be in the new Government’s program of activity. The priorities were included in the new monthly publication of analyses and forecasts launched on March 27, Info-Prim Neo reports.
Valeriu Prohnitchi, the executive director of “Expert-Grup”, said that the new Government will have to solve a number of economic problems inherited from the previous executive. Among its major tasks will be to finalize the regulatory reform and to effectively diminish the administrative burden, especially by reducing the kinds of licensed entrepreneurial activities. It will have to implement the European technical regulations, sanitary and phytosanitary standards; to strengthen ministries’ capacities of analyzing, monitoring and assessing polices; to improve the interministerial reporting and coordination procedures; to finalize the internal financial control system and the integrated system of managing public finances stipulated in the EU-Moldova Action Plan; to privatize Moldtelecom company and Banca de Economii (Savings Bank) and to restructure the companies Air Moldova and Moldova’s Railway. Also, it must strengthen the institutional capacities of the National Agency for the Protection of Competition and eliminate the conflicts of interests from its activity. The Agency must be financed exclusively from public money. Another priority is the consolidation of the public-private partnership by conceding certain public works, including the maintenance and repair of roads. The Government must optimize the energy efficiency of companies, accelerate the implementation of the legislation on regional development, deal with administrative decentralization and ensure a transparent utilization of the foreign financial assistance.
“It is evident that the new Government will be temporary and will work in a pre-electoral period. This does not mean that it will have to fulfill all the political orders, i.e to act as electoral staff or social payment house. On the contrary, the new Government could be composed of tougher technocrats able to have their own opinions and to defend them. The fact that they will know from the very beginning that the Government will work for a short period of time could make them assume responsibility for reforms that could not be implemented by the earlier Government,” Prohnitchi said.
He also pointed to the risks to which the new Government could be exposed, mentioning the inflationist risk with an unstable exchange rate, the drought that could repeat, the ideological levers that can alter the principle of economic efficiency. The latest is described by experts as the most serious risk.