The promotion of the draft law on the Customs Service is inopportune, while its implementation will imply additional costs that will be covered from the state budget. The given bill is partially incompatible with the national legislation, while some of its provisions are unclear and contradictory, consider expects of the Center for the Analysis and Prevention of Corruption (CAPC) who appraised the bill. According to the Center, the authorities’ interest to return to the legislative provisions of 2011, which offered the Customs Service employees a number of privileges, was one of the reasons for drafting this bill.
Expert Stela Pavlov, in a news conference at IPN, said the bill drafted by the Ministry of Finance regulates the activity of the Customs Service. It defines its main duties, functions and its structure. This bill is now inopportune as all the provisions included in this are primarily contained in the existing legal framework.
The expert also said that the bill provides for the institution of a number of posts, such as that of customs adviser in Moldova’s embassies. The bill authors didn’t justify the necessity of introducing these posts and didn’t indicate from what financial resources the salaries to these employees will be paid.
Analyzing the bill, the CAPC experts established that this could attract additional costs from the state budget, though the authors say its implementation does not require additional financial resources. “The provisions that refer to the stimulation of customs employees, financing of the training process, institution of the post of customs adviser at Moldova’s embassies will increase the budget expenditure,” stated Stela Pavlov.
According to her, this draft law abusively promotes and favors the interests of customs inspectors, especially as regards their social guarantees, to the detriment of other people. For example, the employees of the Customs Service will benefit from particular bonuses and higher allowances. Also, the children of customs employees will benefit from places at kindergartens and schools within three months of the submission of the application, etc.
CAPC head Galina Bostan said given that most of the provisions of the bill are contained in the existing legislation, the new elements could be included in a separate section of the current Customs Code and a new bill is thus not needed.
The appraisal was carried out within the project “Vulnerability appraisal of draft normative and legislative documents” that is financially supported by the MATRA Rule of Law and Good Governance Program of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
