Activity of the Government on April 2–15, 2007

Appointments. Reshuffles

Ion Apostol was appointed director-general of the National Agency for Regulation of Nuclear and Radiological Activities. Previously, Apostol has served in the Interior Ministry.

Stefan Novac was relieved from the post of director-general of the agency for the protection of intellectual property. Although it was earlier reported that Novac was dismissed “for violation of laws on protection of state symbols and intellectual property,” the governmental decision said that he was relieved from office “at demand” and indicates a date following the announcement made public after the sitting of the cabinet of ministers. In this context, prime minister has reprimanded Vladimir Molojen, minister of information development, Valeriu Mironescu, director-general of the Agro-Industrial Agency Moldova-Vin, and Sergiu Puscuta, chief of the State Tax Inspectorate “for inappropriate attitude manifested in the process of improvement of some legal acts.”

Eugenia Goncear was relieved from the post of head of the National Committee on Adoption “in connection with a new job.”

Decisions

Decisions approving some strategies and programmes. The Government has approved:

The national strategy and the action plan on reformation of the residential child care system for 2007–2012;
The national strategy on employment policies for 2007–2015;
The decision approving the 2007–2009 programme on rehabilitation and social integration of disabled persons;
The action plan on improvement of situation in the field of civil aviation.

Decision approving the list of enterprises that cannot be privatised. It establishes about 200 strategic state and municipal enterprises working in national security field, institutions of higher learning, pre-university institutions, and state medical institutions.

Decision on creation of the agency for the management of national tourism areas. The agency will work in the Ministry of Culture and Tourism as an administrative body and it will have 9 employees.

Decisions on denunciation of some conventions:

The convention on cooperation in the field of quarantine and protection of plants between Moldovan Government and Romanian Government;
The convention on cooperation in veterinary sanitary field between Moldovan Government and Romanian Government;
The sanitary-veterinary convention between Moldovan Government and Bulgarian Government;
The convention on cooperation in the field of quarantine and protection of plants between Moldovan Government and Bulgarian Government.

Decisions approving some draft legal acts:

on prevention and combat of corruption;
on ratification of the United Nations Convention against Corruption;
draft decision of the Parliament approving the object proposed for concession and mandatory clauses of the contract on concession of activities of prospecting and exploitation of petroleum and natural gas deposits.

The Government has given up the promotion of the draft law on ministerial responsibility, proposing this way the inclusion of ministerial responsibility in the Law # 64/1990 on Government. The elaboration of this draft law was stipulated by Government’s Action Plan for the 4th quarter of 2006 (GD # 1130 from 29.09.2006), with the Ministry of Justice being in charge with this task.

Decisions on allocation of funds:

As much as 39.7 million lei will be allocated to the Chisinau City Hall to pay debts raised in 2006 for building social-cultural facilities (the Eternitate complex, reconstruction of the street Pan Halippa, reconstruction of fountains, trolley line, etc.). It should be noted that parliamentarians and director of the Agency for Construction and Territorial Development have earlier said that breaches and essential rises of expenditures without a legal coverage and without ensuring the quality of works have been admitted to build the facilities. Authorities and guilty persons did not reportedly take additional actions and measures.
As much as 950,000 lei will be allocated to the Ministry of Local Public Administration for participation in building or purchase of apartments (the ministry has maximum 20 employees).

Order on implementation of Council of Europe’s surveys. The act signed by prime minister establishes that legal initiatives by Government surveyed by the Council of Europe will be delivered to the Parliament along with translated surveys and table of divergences on proposals by CoE experts. The decision is based on an order by chairman of the Parliament, need to respect the assumed commitments and implement the recommendations by CoE experts in national legislation.

Sittings. Decisions. Statements

The Government has heard reports on:

The results of budget collections in March 2007;
The execution of state welfare budget in March 2007;
The raising of mandatory health insurance funds in March 2007.

Concerns with situation in pharmaceutical sector

Prime Minister Vasile Tarler has convoked a working sitting on situation on pharmaceutical market and indicated the necessity of establishing a system to strictly record the quality of sold products and the price formation procedure. The premier outlined the importance of implementing the state nomenclature of drugs, which would allow a quantity-value record of imported and domestic medications. He also ordered an analysis of prices of drugs from market; a strict monitoring on process of acquisition of drugs by public medical-sanitary institutions in Moldova; examination of financial possibilities and raising of proposals on enlargement of the range of drugs compensated within mandatory health insurance; creation of a network of pharmacies and pharmaceutical facilities in every locality of Moldova to ensure the access of all citizens to medications, which will be sold for real prices.

Implementation of “Electronic Moldova” Strategy

The executive has heard a report on implementation of the national information society building strategy “Electronic Moldova” in 2006, noting that the goals of the strategy are accomplished in compliance with the action plan in the field. According to the document presented by Government members, goals of building the information society are being accomplished starting 2006 and a number of important measures have been taken:

elaboration of the regulation on mechanism of implementation of the Action Plan “Electronic Moldova”;
start of the project “Implementation of the e-Governing Component” and elaboration of the electronic governing concept;
elaboration of the draft concept of governmental portal;
elaboration of draft laws on electronic communications, personal data, registers;
elaboration of the concept of official page of Moldova (which is being tested starting December 2006);
approval of the regulation on mode of publishing the information on official websites of public administration authorities (according to estimates by observers, none of pages of governmental institutions corresponds to all requirements);
approval of the regulation on order of applying the digital signature in electronic documents;
finalisation of the first round of the presidential programme “SALT” (the number of computers connected to Internet, their capacities, endowment with licensed software were not reported so far);
launching of the project “Management of Public Finances” etc.

Rise of compensations for natural gas and subsidies for risks in agriculture

The nominative compensations for natural gas for household consumers is indexed by 9 percent on average and about 130,000 persons will benefit of these compensations, while the expenditure for this year will exceed 3.5 million lei. The Government has also approved the allocation of single compensations for connection of residences of some categories of people from rural areas to the natural gas pipe (1,500 lei for families of doctors, teachers and artists who work in villages and 750 lei for families with only one member working in these fields). The number of families who will benefit in 2007 is estimated at about 5,000 families and about 7 million lei will be allocated from the state budget for this purpose.

The shares of subsidising the production risks in agriculture have been increased up to 80 percent, with these changes aiming to encourage producers to insure their crops. About 15 million lei is allocated for this purpose (approximately 4 million lei was spent in 2006). The list of crops which will benefit of state-subsidised insurance premiums was extended (wheat, barley, vineyards, orchards, vine and fruit growing nurseries were included).

e-democracy.md