The fines during the state of emergency were imposed non-uniformly. There are persons who violated the imposed restrictions and were fined, while other persons, including President Igor Dodon, ignored the restrictions set down by the Commission for Exceptional Situations, but weren’t fined, PAS MP Sergiu Litvinenco said in a public debate titled “Government’s performance during six months since its appointment and during two months of state of emergency: pros and cons” that was organized by IPN News Agency.
According to the MP, Igor Dodon violated the contravention legislation when he didn’t wear a mask when visiting elderly persons, didn’t respect the obligation not to form groups consisting of more than three persons, went to church without a mask and without maintaining social distancing. The police imposed fines selectively and omitted the evident violations committed by President Dodon. This is a problem of action, of behavior of the responsible state institutions.
Sergiu Litvinenco noted measures needed to save the economy weren’t taken in Moldova, by the example of other states. The Government took the simplest decisions that stimulate unemployment and do not lead to the keeping of jobs. “I refer to the decisions taken by the Commission for Exceptional Situations by which they practically promoted the idea that the businesses should lay off the employees and those persons should go to the National Employment Agency to get unemployment benefit.”
The MP also said that the PAS proposed other measures based on the experience of other states, such as the subsidization of businesses so that these kept the jobs and paid unemployment benefit to employees during three months. “Such a measure would have cost 2.7 billion lei and would have helped 150,000 employees. It was also suggested creating a loan guarantee fund of 2 billion lei or 1% of the GDP so that the state could compensate for the loans taken out by companies to overcome the crisis,” he stated, noting the authorities’ decision to compensate the interest rates on loans has no effect on businesses and is useless as no bank will want to grant loans to companies that could fail to overcome the crisis.
The debate titled “Government’s performance during six months since its appointment and during two months of state of emergency: pros and cons” was the 135th installment of the series of debates “Development of political culture through public debates” that are supported by the Hanns Seidel Foundation.