Activity of the Government on November 8–21, 2005

Reshuffles

The Moldovan president has relieved Valerian Revenco from the post of minister of health and social protection. Revenco was the eldest (born in 1939) and experienced minister in the acting cabinet, being member of the executive since 1999. At the same time, Valerian Revenco was awarded the highest state order — the Order of the Republic.
The chief of state named Ion Ababii, who ran the University of Medicine and Pharmaceutics Nicolae Testemiteanu since 1994, to succeed Revenco. Ababii was born in 1944 and he is a doctor habilitatus in medicine and university professor.
The executive decided to relieve from offices Vitalie Mrug, director-general of the State Administration of Civil Aviation, and Iurie Tabirta, director of the National Agency for Regulation in Telecommunications and Informatics. No reasons of these dismissals are known so far, nor were even the sacked persons notified. The sacked persons complied a priori, with the cabinet decision published in Monitorul Official indicating “their demands”, as these offices are held for a certain mandate and executive officials did not carry out researches beforehand to demonstrate that the dismissed functionaries have violated the legislation on their sectors.
The Moldovan president said in a recent interview with mass media that he is unsatisfied with the existing situation in Air Moldova Company and civil aviation in general, since major financial interests and corruption elements are being registered in this sector. No final decision on a penal case filed against Air Moldova administration, which the Centre for the Struggle against Economic Crimes and Corruption had earlier held and investigated, is know until now.
The November 19 cabinet sitting passed several important decisions on staff problems:
Tamara Sumscaia was relieved from the post of head of the National House of Social Insurance for unsatisfactory fulfilment of job-related duties. In particular, it was noted that Sumscaia failed a necessary control on the process of awarding of invalidity categories, so that many people who do not hold the right to these categories received them.
Valentin Vizant, former secretary of the Central Electoral Commission, was nominated as director of the State Administration of Civil Aviation.
Nicolae Gumenii, former deputy director of the Customs Service, was appointed to head the governmental administration. Gumenii ran the Privatisation Department in 2000–2003.

Sittings. Decisions

Implementation of action plan

Prime Minister Vasile Tarlev and executive officials discussed at a working sitting actions needed for implementation of the Government’s action programme “Modernisation of country — welfare of people.” It was said that Government’s policies must be based on creation of conditions aimed to enhance the competitiveness of sectors of national economy and accessibility of domestic goods to foreign markets. The importance of continuing the implementation of reform of regulation framework, taking real actions for protection of competition and granting an increased support for development of small- and medium-sized business as efficient measure for these sectors. According to the prime minister, development of agriculture sector must be achieved through a radical modification of the structure of crops and intensive integration of the branch with processing industry. Tarlev underlined the need to recover the capital market, to enhance competitiveness of services, to increase investments in development of infrastructure.

The indications of prime minister almost reiterated the ones that the chief of states voiced at the October 26 close-door sitting of the cabinet of ministers.

Prevention of bird flu

A sitting convoked by Vasile Tarlev with the participation of factors in charge with epidemic prevention indicated measures for prevention of bird flu in Moldova. Although no case of infection was officially registered until now, the situation is alarming due to extension of this disease in neighbouring countries. From these reasons, quarantine was introduced at all chicken enterprises in Moldova and all measures needed for isolation of fowls from birds of passage were taken. The prime minister ordered a severer supervision of fowl imports, mandatory disinfection of transportation means that enter the country. A specialised laboratory for detection of the bird flu virus worth 300,000 euros, purchased with the financial assistance of the European Union, will be put into operation in Moldova soon.

Implementation of EGPRSP

Vasile Tarlev chaired a new sitting at which the Ministry of Industry and Infrastructure, Justice Ministry and Ministry of Information Development reported on implementation of the Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (EGPRSP) at sector level for nine months of 2005. The head of the executive indicated positive trends for rise of macroeconomic indicators, but “growth paces are slow” and, therefore, more intensive actions for promotion of policies on industrial sector are needed.

Speaking about justice, the prime minister indicated the need to increase the access of population to justice, to improve quality of existing normative documents and to draft proposals on reduction of judiciary spending, implementation of more efficient measures for corruption reduction.

The information technologies sector in Moldova will be reformed more intensively by speeding up the implementation of the programmes Electronic Moldova and e-Government, so that information and communication technologies be spread “on basis of a single information infrastructure.”

New calls for lower interest rates on credits

By sending a letter to the National Bank of Moldova and Association of Banks, the prime minister insisted on reduction of interest rate on bank credits, soliciting the introduction of a 15-percent rate for loans in lei and 9 percent for credits in foreign currency by late 2005. Tarlev bases his demand on requests voiced by businessmen at a forum on September 30 and the need to support ongoing investment projects in Moldova by financial-bank sector.

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