Two medical machines bought by the Forensic Center for a total 7 million lei are gathering dust and have even been put on a list of equipment to be removed from service, the Court of Audits has found.
Moreover, foreign donors’ money were used to buy the two devices: a DNA sequencer and a photographic development system.
As reported by RFE/RL’s Moldovan Service, bought in 2013 within a EU-funded project, the sequencer was supposed to be part of a state-of-the-art genetic laboratory for the use of the Forensic Center. In 2015, the National Anticorruption Center opened an investigation. Two years later, the Forensic Center’s director and his deputy, Ion Cuvșinov and Andrei Pădure, were briefly arrested in the case, which is ongoing to the present day.
The current director, Vasile Șarpe told RFE/RL’s Moldovan Service that the sequencer had been bought even though the former administrators knew the Center didn’t have a suitable place to accommodate it. Cuvșinov admitted it was true, but added that he was “pressured” to make the purchase. “I wanted to do the right thing and the procurement went according to the rules. It is, to some extent, unusual to buy equipment and then find space for it, but that were the orders of the Ministry and I believe that the Ministry, too, was pressured by other authorities into making this purchase”, Cuvșinov defended himself.
Eventually, the government had to spend another 7 million lei for a different DNA sequencer, and the new lab was only opened in 2018.
As for the second device, the photographic development system that had cost UNDP about $50,000, Cuvșinov declined to comment. But Șarpe, his successor, said that these kinds of machines are now obsolete, being replaced by digital technologies.
