Ministers – president’s favorite toys

From 2001 and until present days, 26 ministers have been dismissed in the Republic of Moldova. Due to a number of rotations, most of them were appointed in other positions. The unsuitable ones have been usually removed. The Government and the Presidency have never explained this phenomenon. The press has repeatedly made public the illegal activities of some of them, whether it was during, before or after the governing period, while the Government Apparatus informs us that there is no legal case opened on any of the former ministers’ name.

As a result of the press articles published on the illegal activities of various ministers, politician Vitalia Pavlicenco addressed in March 2008 an interpellation to the Government Apparatus and requested some information regarding the ministers dismissed beginning with 2001, as well as about the existence/evolution of legal cases filed on certain former Government members. “I always read and take notice of what is written in the press. I have respect for this work, because I know what it means. As for the interpellation, it is one of many interpellations I have addressed. I’ve read many times from the press about the illegal affairs of certain people highly placed in the state, including ministers. This is how I’ve decided to request the given information”, Vitalia Pavlicenco explained. She was dissatisfied with the reply, which has proven once again that “the government is a sick and corrupt one, there is no fight against corruption, everything is a masquerade”.   

Ministries in forgotten files

Despite the information presented by the Government Apparatus regarding the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA), the Center for Fighting Economic Crimes and Corruption (CFECC) and the Customs Service, there are still legal cases filed against former ministers. There are at least two files considered by the CFECC coworkers –the files of Anatol Cuptov and Valeriu Mostovoi.

At the end of 2001, Anatol Cuptov was appointed by the head of state Minister of Transport and Communications. In November 2002, after 11 months of the minister’s activity, the head of state, publicly accuses him of having committed serious economic crimes and dismisses him. In this case the official dismissal reason was not stated too.

There was some information in the press stating that the former minister was under criminal investigation by the CFECC for funds embezzlement. In February 2004, upon the request of the Independent Press Association, after waiting 7 months, the CFECC has finally replied that “according to the legislation, the legal file opened on the actions of the former minister of transport and communications, Anatol Cuptov, was closed”.  As the General Prosecutor’s Office stated, the legal proceedings were stopped due to the “change of situation”. A few weeks after the dismissal, based on a Government ruling, Cuptov was appointed general manager of “Giurgiulesti Trade Harbour” State Enterprise, where he has worked only for a few months. Hoping to find out more details about the closed file, we have contacted Stela Barba, the investigator handling the case and the one who passed on the decision to close it. She stated that she didn’t remember anymore what the case was about and what “the change of situation” meant (it is probably a common thing to work on a legal case filed against a former minister!). She suggested us to send her an official letter. The reply is still expected to come, although time has run out.

Flagrant with Chocolate and Champagne

The case of Valentin Mostovoi is even more confusing. While in the case of Cuptov, the “file was forgotten”, in Mostovoi’s case, it has even been forgotten that he had been a minister. In the list of dismissed ministers, attached by Nicolae Gumenai as a reply to the interpellation, the name and information about former minister of Labor and Social Protection Valeriu Mostovoi are missing. In April 2005, a legal file was opened on his name for taking bribe. CFECC suspected Mostovoi of extorting and accepting bribery from an old man who wanted to obtain free treatment at a bathing resort for his sick wife. The minister made him believe he could help him.  After conducting a flagrant operation, during which the old man gave him 6 boxes of chocolate and 2 bottles of champagne, the minister was arrested by the CFECC coworkers. All this happened after the old man’s wife had received the treatment pass. In 2006, the Supreme Court found Mostovoi guilty of corruption and prohibited him to hold public functions for 5 years. Informally, there were some rumors according to which Mostovoi didn’t suit the Government. This hypothesis could be considered true if we take into account the fact that Mostovoi, considered by his jurist colleagues and his former ministry colleagues as “a man of too fair behavior”, the “most honest man in the Ministry”, is the only minister from the period of 2001-2008 found guilty of corruption. Thus, the fact that the file of the former minister Mostovoi was forgotten is even stranger, because it could be considered a success for the communist government in fighting corruption.

Mihailescu’s case – unique in Tarlev’s Governments

Constantin Mihailescu, former minister of Ecology and Natural Resources, is the first official dismissed after Victor Stepaniuc was named deputy prime-minister. He is also the only minister discharged from his function due to “the non-execution of his legislation granted responsibilities, shown by means of influence peddling”. Mihailescu was dismissed in February 2008, after the Ministry of Internal Affairs’ Fraud Department and Court of Account coworkers have conducted a financial control at the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources, a control initiated by the economic Police. Together with Mihailescu, the head of the Department of Accounting and Foreign Affairs, Lora Ceban, was suspected of embezzlement of a couple of million lei from the National Ecology Fund. At the moment, the case of Lora Ceban is being sent to court, while the ex-minister is waiting for results of the ruling to end the legal proceedings, as sources from the Prosecutor’s Office have informed us.

When inquired by us, Mihailescu refused to comment on the situation. He suggested us to take care of matters more serious than his case.

Former ministers that have “messed up diplomacy’s staff policy” of Moldova

When looking through the list of posts former ministers occupy after their dismissal, we can see that, in a way, it has become a tradition for them to be appointed ambassadors. “A high number of former ministers become ambassadors over night, messing up the staff policy of the Moldovan diplomacy”.

Minister – Businessman – ambassador

The former minister of foreign affairs, Nicolae Cernomaz was dismissed by president Voronin in July 2001, after only three months of his reconfirmation as a member of the Tarlev Government. After more than a year and a half, doing business in the meantime, on March 26^th, 2003, Cernomaz was appointed Ambassador of the Republic of Moldova to Ukraine and, part-time ambassador to the Republic of Azerbaijan and Georgia as well. He was called back from his function in January 2005, but he never returned to Chisinau. He stayed in Ukraine to conduct his own business.

Minister – unemployed – ambassador

In March 2005, after the first dismissal of the Tarlev Government, former minister of finance Iacob Timciuc, also a member of the Communists’ Party of the Republic of Moldova Central Committee, was not included in the new Government. He had to wait a while before being assigned ambassador. On May 11^th, 2006, after 1 year, at the proposal of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration, he was assigned Ambassador of the Republic of Moldova to China and Korea, both with the residence in Beijing.

At the end of 2006, Ziarul de Garda published an article, presenting Timciuc’s first actions as he arrived in Beijing: “Unsatisfied with China’s diplomatic office conditions, he spent about 12 thousand dollars in only one month to equip the embassy at “an ambassador’s level”.

Dismissed and promoted minister

The former Minister of Defense Victor Gaiciuc was dismissed from his function in October 2004 after a theft of weapons from an army’s warehouse. A month before the dismissal, the Information and Security Service announced that munitions had been stolen from the National Army’s warehouses and that important persons from the Ministry of Defense were suspected of this robbery. Voronin then criticized the Ministry’s activity, led by Gaiciuc, for the lack of an accurate record of the National Army’s military assets, as well as for the violation of temporary soldiers’ rights. After only 3 months, the former minister is appointed representative of the Republic of Moldova for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and ambassador in the Kingdom of Belgium.

One has “the feeling of a sudden return in the sinecure times during the Brejnev period, when professional capacity didn’t matter that much, but rather the closeness to the boss, to the only person on whom, for many, the bread and salt of this political regime depended on”, the political analyst Igor Munteanu says.

National Legislative – “colored parrot”

Most of the politicians were dismissed during the first mandate of communist governing in the period of 2001-2005; in only one year and 8 months – 10 ministers were dismissed. “The dismissal of ministers during the same Office of Ministers is a bad practice in the Republic of Moldova. This allows, on the one hand, to cover up outrageous cases just when the mass media is in title to question the prime minister, who includes in his team of ministers corrupt or incompetent people and, on the other hand, this practice transforms the national legislative into a colored parrot, namely because it allows unauthorized changes in the office of ministers”, the political analyst Igor Munteanu states.

According to article 98, paragraph (6) from the Constitution “in case of cabinet reshuffling, the president of Moldova revokes and appoints, based on the prime minister’s proposal, certain Government members”. There is no legislative act in which it is specified the number of allowed dismissals. The member of the judicial Commission on assignments and immunities, Gheorghe Susarenco, has only one explanation for the high number of dismissed ministers: “The president and prime minister were playing with the ministers. In fact, the head of state was in charge of the Government. If he didn’t like someone or someone didn’t listen to him, he was dismissed. They’ve dismissed a great number of people, who were either inconvenient or disobedient, or God knows why. The Government will never state its reasons”.

Published in Romanian on August 7^th 2008