Moldovan Chamber of Commerce head resigns

Chisinau, 25 March /MOLDPRES/- Valeriu Lazar announced his resignation from the office of head of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI). Lazar made the statement at a today’s meeting of the organisation’s executive bureau.

“In July 2014, when I accepted the invitation of the CCI leadership and was appointed head by the Chamber's by the extraordinary congress, I treated the vote of confidence given unanimously by delegations representing about 1,500 member-enterprises, not only to me as person, but also to the programme on developing and reforming the CCI, the basic elements of which I have earlier announced,” he said.

In December 2014, after an intense participatory process, in which practically all CCI staff had been involved, I proposed the chamber’s council a Strategic Development Programme (PDS) of the institution till 2017 – when an ordinary congress is to take place, and when I intended to come up before the member-enterprises with the results expected both by the latter and the entire business environment of Moldova. I got the unanimous vote of the council for the programme on institution’s modernization, meant to ensure adjusting the national chamber system to the present requirements, to the best practices of the work of organizations of representation and support, as well as to ensure the achievement of CCI's strategic goals, approved by its congress, Lazar noted. 

“In essence, by effectively implementing PDS, we committed to bring CCI again to its original task, set in the law on CCI and, frankly speaking, to re-bring it to the public interest zone, implicitly its work in the common interest of its members, with modern instruments and maximum efficiency. The usefulness a chamber of commerce has obligation to generate resides in the added value it brings to the investment climate and business environment – through development projects, exchange of good practices, information and consultative support, training and promotion of private sector's interests,” he said.

“In reality, despite the fact that most CCI members were imbued with the need for changes seen in PDS and that we managed together to launch many of the reforms set, during its implementation, some Council members, as well as CCI employees – "beneficiaries" of the previous system of operation ,started boycotting and even blocking the process. Moreover, some of them resigned on their own initiative and afterwards started "subversive" activities of denigrating me personally and the institution, in different forms. The culmination was the late 2015 ruling by the CCI Council, under which the decision on approving PDS, taken one year before, had been repealed,” Lazar said.

Valeriu Lazar also said that, at the concerned meeting in late 2015, he had proposed the holding of a CCI extraordinary congress, in order to bring for discussion his mandate of reforming the Chamber, as most member-enterprises wanted this. Nevertheless, the Council blocked the initiative.   

“Resignation of CCI head requires, according to legal provisions, the obligatory summoning of an extraordinary congress in half a year at the latest. So, my resignation inevitably triggers this process and is the only solution to awake to reality the Council – which is obliged to serve the interests of the entrepreneurial sector and not of people "angry" with CCI and its head, in order to raise awareness and actively involve member enterprises and state institutions in modernization of the chamber system from Moldova”, Valeriu Lazar said.

The deputy head of the institution, Tudor Olaru, will serve as interim head of CCI till the Chamber's extraordinary congress. 

(Reporter A. Mardare, editor L. Alcaza)