Activity of the President on November 22 – December 5, 2005

Decrees

The chief of state has awarded the Civil Merit medal to Valeriu Gurbulea, first deputy prosecutor-general. The medal was awarded for prodigious activity in the Prosecutor’s Office bodies, merits for execution of legislation and high professionalism, in connection with the 40th birthday. Earlier, Gurbulea had held the office of secretary of the Supreme Security Council, a structure subordinated to the Moldovan president.

Sittings. Declarations

Participation in the forum of Community of Democratic Option (CDO)

Participating in the forum in Ukraine, Vladimir Voronin has launched several proposals on format of cooperation with the organisation. He said that the CDO must encourage the regional integration, must institute a parliamentary assembly, while member countries must continue to take over the European standards in the perspective of integration of some of them in the European Union.

Controversial statements

The Moldovan president delivered a series of statements at a TV programme, which generated multiple comments of mass media and political parties.
Vladimir Voronin said that he does not intend to step down from the post of leader of the Moldovan Party of Communists (PCRM), nor he has promised to depoliticize the office of chief of state. He noted that he needs the political support of his party. Later, several parliamentary parties have commented on this statement, saying that the chief of state violates the agreements reached on occasion of his election on April 4, 2005, by delivering such statements.
However, the chief of state and PCRM leader confirmed that the process of reformation of the party continues, but this process will be long and the political platform will remain of the leftwing after an eventual reformation.
As regards the elections for the Chisinau mayor-general post, the chief of state said that the Government and president support Vasile Ursu, independent candidate to this office, because “he cannot be indifferent over results of the scrutiny in the capital in his quality of president.”
Speaking about the latest judgment of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) vs Moldova, the chief of state said that these rulings are a result of a long examination of cases and they do not have a political nature, and the Government is to work out a draft law to establish the responsibility of judges who pass illegal rulings contested in the ECHR, in order to avoid a worse situation.
Asked about a possible dismissal of the Government, Vladimir Voronin said that this topic is not considered, while the cabinet members were told only to optimise and modernise their activity, to take more resolute actions in order to ensure a qualitative economic growth.
The chief of state regretted that the Bessarabian Metropolitan Church was registered in the Republic of Moldova in compliance with an ECHR judgment, saying that “the existence of two metropolitan churches of the same religion in a country is abnormal.”

Implementation of the “SALT” Programme

The president has convoked the governmental administration and competent ministries to examine the implementation of the SALT Programme that he initiated in 2004. Vladimir Voronin solicited a detailed technical and methodological analysis of the programme and established the need to work out concrete methodologies for implementation of information technologies in education sector, drafting of educational programmes on different school subjects and teaching of informatics in schools. The sitting also discussed the problem of adequate costs for use of the Internet network, elaboration of single technical standards for installation of computers in schools and a mechanism for centralised technical service of equipment. The persons in charge with the implementation were told to mobilise their forces and to ensure a strict control on enforcement of all components of the programme.

More attention to social protection

Vladimir Voronin has attended a videoconference on social protection of population, with the participation of chiefs of districts and competent specialists of the Government. The chief of state expressed concern with the existing situation in the area of social protection of citizens, especially of people from rural localities, and solicited local public administration representatives to take operative actions in order to improve the state of things in this sector. In particular, the chief of state asked the chiefs of districts and rural localities “to ensure all citizens with heating,” saying that “heads of public administration bodies in the territory will be sanctioned, if citizens lack coal or wood for the heating period of the year.” Voronin solicited chiefs of districts to make a social documentation of every locality, which would include data on all categories of needy people: invalids, job seekers, lonely elderly, children who lack care. The chief of state indicated the opportunity to employ social assistants in mayoralties in the territory, who would permanently take care of disadvantaged people. It should be noted in the context that the functions of social assistants were not stipulated when the staffs of mayoralties were approved in 2003 (June 10, 2003 Decision # 688 of the Government), and local authorities and citizens from rural localities appreciated this thing negatively, but the president and Government aimed to ensure a considerable reduction of functionaries of local public administration then, in order to reduce the negative effects of the administrative-territorial reform. Thus, the situation established at present demonstrates that not all the measures undertaken to implement the administrative reform had a favourable effect on social situation of localities.

Central public administration reform requires new staff reductions

Vladimir Voronin convoked decision-making officials of the Parliament, Government and Presidency and examined again the basic tasks and directions of the central public administration reform. The participants decided that the reform be based on the “European model”, underlining the need to create the Ministry of Local Public Administration at the first stage, which will be in charge with cooperation between local and central public administration bodies. The chief of state proposed that outcome of activity of the working group serve as ground for definition of principles of the next stage of reduction of staff of central public administration. To note in the context that the chairman of the commission for public administration, ecology and territorial development invoked at a recent sitting of the Parliament the need of an increased transparency of reformation process and involvement of legislative body in this sector, as only competent authority able to regulate the activity of local and central public administration. The idea to create a ministry of public administration was proposed when the acting cabinet of ministers was created, but the governing turned it down and awarded a part of territorial development functions to the agency for regional development.

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