Pro Moldova put forward a legislative proposal to reduce the costs incurred to maintain the presidential administration and to exclude the luxury benefits enjoyed by the President. The bill was drafted after the parliamentary group warned that even if the President’s powers are limited, the budget during the last few years “started to seem unlimited”, IPN reports.
“It is hallucinating how a country that cannot ensure the minimum subsistence level for the largest part of the population accepts to allocate over 40 million for the comfort of one functionary - the President,” said the leader of Pro Moldova Andrian Candu.
According to him, a number of candidates underlined the necessity of reducing the costs for maintaining the presidential apparatus, reason for which this bill should be supported by the candidates so that they could pass the sincerity test.
Pro Moldova noted that despite the limited prerogatives in a parliamentary republic, the President of the Republic of Moldova and his family benefit from most of the financial and social guarantees. They benefit from state guard, special medical assistance, all the possible types of transport, including a number of luxury cars and helicopter, special leave, dwelling in the municipality of Chisinau, residence in Condrița and a villa in Holercani.
The Pro Moldova Party determined that the costs for the presidential administration in 2017 were of approximately 19 million lei, while in 2020 they came to about 30 million lei after the announced reduction due to the pandemic.
This is the fourth bill proposed by Pro Moldova during the last few weeks as a sincerity test for the parties with candidates running for President. The parliamentary group suggested amending the Constitution by introducing the provision that obliges the state to pay a minimum pension not lower than the subsistence level. Another bill provides that a part of the money collected into the road fund should remain in the local budgets, while the third bill introduces monthly allowances for each child and an annual study allowance and doubles the exemptions from the income tax for maintained persons from 3,000 to 6,000 lei and from 18,000 to 36,000 lei.
