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Activity of the Parliament on November 15–28, 2004

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November 15–19, 2004

During this week debates in Parliament centred around the draft law on Council of Europe expertise of draft laws. The draft was developed by the Government and outlines the procedure of submitting draft laws for expertise and enforcing Council of Europe recommendations. The need to regulate this stems from the inefficiency of the existing mechanisms, when many draft laws are passed without Council of Europe expertise, while others albeit receiving endorsement await adoption.

Under the draft, Ministry of Justice was to become the institution in charge, fact that garnered rich criticism from the opposition. They argued that a specialised institution of the executive branch would be given powers to coordinate and control the activity of the state institutions — Parliament, Government and Presidency. Deputies had many other objections as regards the draft law, but after a break they adopted a Resolution in this respect that provides for:

So far Council of Europe provided expertise on several much-disputed drafts, namely Law on Local Government, Law on Administrative-Territorial Division of Moldova, Law on “Teleradio-Moldova” Public Broadcaster, Penal and Civil Code.

Law on Raising the Minimal Quota of Payments in Cash

As it stands now, businesses may make payments in cash up to 15,000 Lei only, otherwise the Centre for Fighting Economic Crime and Corruption sets a fine equal to 10% of the amount. These sanctions do not apply if payments are made to individuals, farms, licence holders, and several other cases. The Parliament now raised the quota to 100,000 Lei. The move is supposed to eliminate one of the barriers the business is struggling with. Noteworthy, previously the Parliament refused several times to raise the amount on the grounds it would channel liquidity to shadow economy.

Law on Reorganisation of the State Chancellery into Government Apparatus

Several provisions were excluded from the draft voted in the first reading as regards obligatory command of Moldovan and Russian by public officers, as well as prohibiting members of political organisations and public associations to serve in Government Apparatus.

Noteworthy, under the language legislation, chiefs, employees of the state power, state administration, public organisations; as well as employees of enterprises, institutions, organisations in direct contact with citizens (healthcare, public education, media, transportation, telecommunication, trade, social services, communal husbandry, law enforcement, safeguard service, etc), regardless of nationality should fluently speak Moldovan, Russian and in localities largely populated by Gagauz people the Gagauz language as well — so as to observe citizens’ right to choose the language of communication.

Draft law on cancelling penalties and fines to economic agents

Parliament cancelled penalties and fines worth 12 million Lei calculated to economic agents in 2001–2002 who paid all debts. Among those enterprises are several giants: “Termocom”, “Tutun CTC”, Railroad of Moldova, “Pielart”, “Micron”, etc. One of the opinions voiced during the debates was that such initiatives may determine debtors not to pay the debts to state budget.

Government believes that on the contrary such measures encourage the debtors to redeem the debt so as to be exempted from fines. Noteworthy, incumbent Parliament passed more than twenty such initiatives exempting or cancelling fines to many state or private institutions worth over 100 million Lei.

November 22–26, 2004

During this period, the Parliament examined several important drafts, the most relevant of them referring to the obligatory medical insurance.

Of a certain interest were the discussions regarding the Law on Transferring the Unclaimed Shares and Participation Quotas pursuant to the Law on Restructuring of Agricultural Enterprises subject to privatization. Several parliamentarians regarded the adoption of this law as an expropriation, while the majority supported it on the grounds it would enhance the management efficiency of the relevant shares, establish their real owner and avoid the alienation of public property by the organizations who are not legal owners of this property.

Law on Obligatory Medical Insurance Fund for 2005

The revenues and expenditures for the obligatory medical insurance fund for 2005 were established at 1.32 billion lei. The transfers from national budget will make up 840 million lei. The number of persons insured from the budget is about 1.26 mil.

The obligatory medical insurance was established at approximately 670 lei.

The obligatory medical insurance calculated as a percentage of contribution from salaries and other rewards for the relevant categories of payers were established at 4 percent (2 percent for the employer and 2 percent for the employee).

In 2005, the fine for delay in due payment of obligatory medical insurance contributions will make up 0.1 percent of the amount for every day of delay. This amount will be transferred to the accounts of the National Company of Medical Insurance.

The National Company of Medical Insurance was authorized to redistribute with the consent of the Ministry of Health the allocations of the reserve fund among the other funds of obligatory medical insurance.

The bank that will serve the accounts of obligatory medical insurance funds will pay the interest to the accounts balances according to the amounts stipulated in the contract, but not less than the rate applied by the National Bank of Moldova in re-financing the commercial banks during 2 months though procurement operations of state shares, which are transferred monthly to the accounts of State Treasury, National Company of Medical Insurance and its territorial sanitary and medical institutions and agencies.

The revenues accumulated in the account of the National Company of Medical Insurance are allotted to the funds for obligatory medical insurance. In 2005 it is planed to use the resources from this fund to cover the expenses necessary for the accomplishment of the unique program that includes emergency medical assistance, primary medical care, specialized out-patient medical assistance, in-patient medical assistance, and other relevant services.

Law on the Modification of Legislation in Fighting Terrorism

The law adopted by the Parliament introduced several new regulations in the Law on Fighting Against Terrorism, according to which:

1. If necessary, Moldova may request from other states the necessary assistance, as well as participate in the release of hostages based on international treaties signed by Moldova.

2. The following authorities responsible for fighting terrorism were appointed:

3. The Law stipulates the creation of the Anti-terror Center of the Information and Security Service which will be authorized to conduct, coordinate and implement counter-terrorism activities.

The respective law also stipulates that the special foreign anti-terror formations, which carry out joint activities based on international agreements, are exempt from registration with the regional bodies of the Department of Information Technologies without the right to temporary or permanent residence on the territory of Moldova.

These formations cannot be subject to regulations regarding the visa regime when entering or leaving the soil of Moldova.

Foreign vessels, including military (maritime and aerial), the equipment and armament of the special counter-terrorism formations that carry out joint activities based on international agreements, as well as the official documentation of the special above-mentioned formations will be exempt from customs control.

With the creation of the Anti-terrorist center within the Information and Security Service, it will be entitled to carry out prosecution of terrorism-related crimes.

The Law on Measures of Transmitting the Shares and Unclaimed Participation Quotas pursuant to the Law on Restructuring of Agricultural Enterprises Subject to Privatization

The Law on Restructuring of Agricultural Enterprises subject to Privatization established the specific ways of privatization from the account of value quotas and quotas of equivalent land, establishing that their owners either transform the relevant quotas into shares or form individual farms on their basis.

The respective Law established that:

  1. Nonmaterial assets, constructions, including unfinished ones, other unsolicited property during the calculation of the value quotas of the remaining property are transferred at no charge into the property of local public administration.
  2. The property in calculated shares, which remain unclaimed until the end of the liquidation of the enterprise, are transferred into the administration of local public administration that will use this property until its legal claim. The property subject to privatization, transferred to the local public administration, is given in kind to its owners within 30 days from the submission of requests considering its usual wear.

The respective legal provisions were enforced only partly; a part of the shares remained unclaimed within the period established by the legislation and was transferred to the local public administration without establishing the ownership over this property.

The Law recently passed by the Parliament provides that the shares and/or participation quotas of the liquidated agricultural enterprises, transferred into the administration of local government and unclaimed by the participants in privatization process within the established timeframe are given to the participants in the privatization in accordance with the decisions of the privatization committee, adopted at the moment of termination of the agricultural enterprise.

In addition, the Law provides that the Department of Privatization shall sell the shares of liquidated agricultural enterprises transferred into the state ownership or into the ownership of territorial-administrative units, with their consent and in accordance with the procedures established by law.

The Law on Canceling Penalties and Fines

The Law adopted by the Parliament cancels 50% of the penalties and 50% of the fines of the tax-payer who shall not have arrears as of December 31, 2004 both for the State Tax Service and the Customs Department.

The declared goal of the Law is to stimulate the taxpayers to disburse the payments into the consolidated budget, canceling in exchange their delay penalties and all kinds of fines for taxes, established by the effective legislation and reflected in the record-keeping systems of the State Tax Service and Customs Department.

As of September 1, 2004, the arrears to the consolidated budget summed up approximately 3 billion Lei out of which more than half represented delay penalties and fines. It was estimated that in this case, the state would have more to gain than if it were to await the payment of debts together with the fines and delay penalties.

Previously, when similar Laws exempting enterprises from fines and penalties were examined in Parliament, several parliamentarians opposed it on the grounds such moves were discouraging tax-payers to pay their debts. On the other hand, the failure to collect the taxes for a long time reduces their value due to the inflation and the devaluation of the national currency exchange rate.

November 1–14, 2004 November 29 – December 12, 2004