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Activity of the Government on June 16–29, 2003

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Personnel Changes

Even if earlier some media outlets forecast important changes of personnel following the May local elections, the dismissal of the Minister of Education Gheorghe Sima and the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy Stefan Odagiu was somewhat surprising. Their dismissal was decided by President Voronin, who also decided to dismiss the head of the State Service of Protection and Guard Vladimir Preguza, who was replaced by Alexandru Ursachi.

Also, the Deputy Minister of justice Victor Cretu and the Deputy Minister of Culture Sergiu Cuciuc were dismissed after they had submitted letters demanding to be released of duties. Vasile Carafizi was appointed general Director of the Executive Board of the National Agency for Energy Regulation (ANRE), and Nicolae Triboi, who held this position previously, was appointed Director of the Executive Board. Vasile Carafizi was PRCM deputy in the Parliament of 14th legislature. During the same government meeting of 21 June 2003, Mihai Manoli, Moldova Ambassador to USA was appointed Moldova Ambassador to Mexico. More or less surprising has been the destitution of the Geneal Director of the News Agency “Moldpres”, Ion Coretchi, who was replaced by Mihai Belous. During the same period, Mircea Galusca was dismissed from the position of Deputy Head of the Secretariat Department of the State Chancellery.

Decisions

On 16 June 2003, Government approved the norms of drafting the structure and scheme of staffing central public administration and their deconcentrated sub-divisions, as well as their structure and the minimal staff. Thus, there will be 25 types of subdivisions of deconcentrated central administration, to employ 17,453 personnel — public officers and technical employees.

To improve the activity of small and medium enterprises and the system of microfinancing in Moldova, Government adopted the action plan “Microcredit-2005”. The plan envisages drafting a law on microcrediting small businesses and another blueprint on insuring the deposits by the members of loan and savings associations.

On education, a number of decisions were adopted related to the regulation of the activity of branches of foreign universities in Moldova by the Government, covering the expenditure necessary for training orphans and children from low-income families by higher education institutions, the 10% quota of students with extra-budgetary funds out of the number of students admitted on the basis of contracts for each speciality. Apart from these, the Regulation on training foreign citizens and apatrides in the Moldovan education institutions was amended. According to statements by Government members, the regulation of the activity of foreign universities in Moldova by the Government is necessary to induce the former to train in subjects that are necessary for the national economy. Also, the higher education institutions will not be allowed to raise their tuition fees.

“In order to support the activity of exhibitions in Moldova and increase the impact on the promotion of local exports”, was created the State Enterprise “Moldexpo”, through the merge of the International Exhibition Centre and “Moldoexpo” and the Organisation for the Promotion of Exports in Moldova. Also, a plan of measures for a more efficient application of public purchase was adopted. Through this decision, the Government has obliged the ministries, departments, local public administration bodies to submit reports during the purchase procedure, use the pre-selection procedure, organise repeated auctions when there is only one bid etc. As a consequence of the new territorial administrative organisation, the State Fiscal Service will be re-organised to have in subordination 32 district fiscal offices, 4 offices in the Municipality of Chisinau and 2 offices in the municipalities of Balti and Gagauzia.

Last week changes were made whereby the Ministry of Culture will be entitled to interfere with the editorial activity of publishing houses, regardless of their form of ownership, and the Government will have the task of regulating the installation of monuments, busts and commemorative plates. Government representatives justified these changes by the need to avoid overlaps in published works and installation of monuments of doubtful artistic values. Some heads of publishing houses and representatives of artists’ community believe that these new regulations are but another form of censorship.

Thus, both the regulation of the activity of foreign universities in Moldova, installation of monuments, busts and memorial plates by the Government, and the amendments whereby the Ministry of Culture will have the right to interfere with the activity of publishing houses show a trend opposed to the decentralisation of competencies of central authorities. Moreover, one can easily observe that some of these new regulations on education, although apparently well-intentioned, are of a somewhat restrictive nature. Worthy of our interest is the interest of the Executive to support the low-income children even if covering the expenditure necessary for their training will create problems for some higher education institutions.

June 2–15, 2003 June 30 – July 20, 2003