“Corruption is one of the biggest issues for the activity of the business environment of Moldova”, said Leonid Cerescu, the President of CNPM at the conference: “Fighting Corruption in Moldova: What business can do?” which was held on September 28, at Chisinau.
Institute for Development and Social Initiatives (IDIS) “Viitorul” organized the event.
The conference was attended by the representatives of business circles, experts communities, NBA members, NAC, the Economic Council under the Prime Minister that have discussed the risks of corruption and what business can do to become part of solution.
The President of CNPM believes that a serious obstacle of economic growth of Moldova is relation between corruption and informal economy. “It is estimated that an important part of labor force is involved in economic activities linked with the black market and corruption and the unofficial incomes generated by them are not negligible, thus taking measures to combat the informal economy will have beneficial effects also on the level of corruption in the country”, says Leonid Cerescu.
Businesspersons they have to resort to bribery especially when the control bodies check them. Entrepreneurs say the controls realized by authorities are predominantly punitive, declares CNPM.
“Even if actions have been taken to combat corruption and bureaucracy, however, in some state institutions bureaucracy is at the head of the table. This summer a bus with children that were going to Ukraine was detained for three hours at customs to pass on a corridor indicated by the customs employee, although the driver had all the papers in order”, mentioned Dumitru Albulesa, the Executive Director the Union of Transporters and Road Workers in the Republic of Moldova, member of CNPM.
The study “Major constraints on the Moldovan business environment”, realized in 2013 by CNPM showed that the biggest constraint on Moldovan business is the unstable political climate and weak relations with state institutions.
To reduce the corruption level, the CNPM came with the following proposals within the conference:
- Improving of corporate governance at the level of public institutions;
- Implementing the information technologies in the activity of state institutions. Especially, this is linked to the procedures of issuing permissive documents for entrepreneurship (ex.: licenses on construction, different licenses on activity, etc.);
- Strictly application of the Law no 235 since 20.07.2006 on basic principles regulating entrepreneurial activity;
- Diminishing margin of discretion of civil servants in the process of issuing permissive documents for entrepreneurial activity;
- Optimizing the number of employees and of public institutions and directing the financial resources to increase the salaries of competent officials and their training;
- Implementation of clear and simple procedures of interaction between state and entrepreneurs and rigorous control of these relationships.
