Huge responsibility needs to be assumed to overcome crisis, Mihai Manoli

The most difficult task of the next Cabinet of ministers will be to start respecting the law again, when it comes to the role and the functions of the government, says ex-finance minister Mihai Manoli, the president of the Moldovan Insurers' Association. This, he says, means each member of the government should assume huge responsibilities to overcome the crisis and achieve sustainable economic growth. Manoli told a meeting between the civil society and Premier-elect Vlad Filat on Monday that in recent years a defective 'vertical of power' had formed when all the decisions, both political and economical, were made by only two or three persons. “All we talk about is greater subsidies for one sector or another. But the question is, where shall we take this money from? We seek consolidation in agriculture from a political perspective, but when it comes to the economic perspective, we continue to import carrots from the Warsaw wholesale market. At the same time, there are steps that need not just economic justification, but some political thinking, too. For example, the raise in public conveyance fares, or in water rates. Of course they are necessary, but they ought to be promoted with great caution in order not to trigger serious social disturbances”, said Manoli. Talking about the insurance sector, Manoli has argued that it needs to be paid more attention. “The insurance market in Moldova makes up 833 million lei. In Estonia, where the population is half of Moldova's, the insurance market represents an equivalent of 7.2 billion lei. In Romania, the share of this sector in the GDP is 8 times bigger than in Moldova, in Hungary 30 times, in Belgium 164 times”, he said. Manoli thinks poverty is not the only problem in Moldova. “If we take the number of luxury limos by 1,000 people, Moldova would rank one the top five spots in the world. Attitudes and mentality are also a problem, and attitudes must change. And when landslide or floods strike us, we should be able to possess legal instruments to help the families in need”, said Manoli.