By the bill to amend the Law on the National Bank of Moldova and the Law on the National Commission for Financial Markets, exaggerated powers are given to the central bank. After this showed that it cannot manage the problems in the financial-banking sector, it cannot be practically spared of control on the part of the state. Such a conclusion was reached by experts of the Center for the Analysis and Prevention of Corruption (CAPC), who assessed the vulnerability of the bill to amend the two laws.
In a news conference at IPN, CAPC expert Viorel Parvan said the bill was drafted to implement the recommendations of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, which were formulated after assessing the financial system of Moldova in 2014, and to eliminate the inconsistencies between the national legislation and the primary legislation of the EU. But the informative note wasn’t appraised by the state institutions and does not include a synthesis of the recommendations of civil society or the provisions of the EU laws to which the national legislation is adjusted.
The bill institutes a ban on the approval, suspension, annulment, censorship or postponement of the coming into force of the documents issued by the National Bank of Moldova and the National Commission for Financial Markets. It also bans the formulation of preliminary opinions about these documents or the influencing of their issuing and limits the responsibility of the authorities that survey the financial-banking and non-banking sectors. The draft law allows promoting group or individual interests/benefits that are not correlated with or run counter to the general public interest.
According to Viorel Parvan, the bill’s provisions go against other provisions of the correlated legislation, provisions of the Constitution and norms of the normative documents subordinated to the laws.
CAPC head Galina Bostan said the bill was adopted in the first reading very swiftly and it is not very clear why the state decided to offer so many prerogatives to the National Bank of Moldova as this until now also had the instruments needed to manage the financial-banking system, but showed that it is unable to. Thus, this institution cannot be freed from control.
The analysis by the CAPC was carried out within the Vulnerability Expertise of the Draft Normative and Legal Acts Project that is supported financially by Matra Rule of Law and Good Governance Program of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
