The government e-payment gateway MPay allows paying financial contributions for parents’ associations or foundations. For now yet, not many parents’ associations, more exactly only five, use this platform. Director of the Public Association “Solidary Parents” Ala Revenco has told IPN that the financial transparency problems faced by parents’ associations are the reason for which the service is not popular with some of these.
When parents’ associations were only constituted, it was provided that the financial contributions should be transferred to a bank account. The parent received a bill issued by the association, went to the bank and paid this. The MPay service later appeared and the parent can now make the transfer online. Ala Revenco believes the main problem resides in the way in which parents’ associations work. “If they had been obliged to be transparent and any transfer or collection of money in cash in educational institutions had been banned, this method would have been much more popular,” stated Ala Revenco.
The annual or monthly dues for each member of the association should be stipulated in the association’s statutes. The educational institution makes a request to the association’s administration and this decides what costs should be covered the first. But it doesn’t always happen this way. There is a list of costs that are necessary and argued, but there are also costs that run counter to the normative framework in education. No one monitors the money collection process as it is considered that the association has a controller and has administration bodies responsible for the examination of the association’s work,” noted the director of “Solidary Parents”.
“When, for example, the funds of the association go to cover repair works, to purchase hygiene products or other things to satisfy the school’s needs, it is hard to determine if these costs were doubled from the educational institution’s budget or not. There is stipulated no special category that should be covered by the association and we double the budget lines that are anyway partially or fully financed with funds from the institution’s budget. And then we face risks, including corruption risks, and don’t know what was bought with the school’s funds and what was bought with the association’s funds,” said Ala Revenco.
Elena Gafton, head of “Mircea Eliade” Foundation, one of the first foundations that started to use the MPay service, said that this is an easy payment method available to all those who want to make a donation to the foundation. “The donations are voluntary and can be made also through direct bank transfer to the foundation’s account or at the foundation’s accounting office, where a sales slip is issued. We have excellent cooperation with the public institution e-Government Center. We have an electronic signature and haven’t encountered any difficulty,” stated Elena Gafton.
The parents’ and students’ association of “Mihail Kotsiubinskiˮ Lyceum registered on the platform in 2017. The association’s head Svetlana Belaya said that this is a convenient method of collecting money. “The next day we already have information about the transferred money. From the viewpoint of accessibility, it is a good idea. We chose this payment method through MPay as it is more convenient for most of the parents. We do not depend on hour, on the accounting office. There are only the association and the parent,” stated Svetlana Belaya.
Galina Plămădeală, accountant of the Public Association “Spiru Haret”, said that all the payments are registered for each private individual separately. The accounting records are kept in a transparent way. Each member of the association can choose from among several payment methods that make this transaction more efficient. The association also has a work program at the office, where the persons can pay. But transfers from a distance are also frequent. “We as the beneficiaries of this system and also the members of the association are very satisfied with this platform. Dues are paid each month. The transfer is made in five minutes and we see the payment in the system within ten minutes,” stated the accountant.
Adriana Cazacu-Țigaie, secretary of state of the Ministry of Education and Research, said the founding, registering and running of parents’ associations are not within the Ministry’s remit. In order to prevent and fight corruption among teaching staff, the Ministry bans the executive and teaching staff of educational institutions from becoming directly or indirectly involved in the claiming, acceptance, collection or extorting of money, regardless of the reason invoked. The educational institutions are allowed to accept goods, financial resources and services from registered public (parents) association and donations from other legal entities on condition these goods are indicated in accounting records.
