Moldovan parliament meeting ends due to lack of quorum

Chisinau, 2 December /MOLDPRES/- The today’s parliament meeting ended due to the lack of quorum, after MPs of the Party of Communists (PCRM), Party of Socialists (PSRM) and Liberal Democratic Party (PLDM) left the parliament’s plenum in protest against the fact that Prime Minister Pavel Filip would not be present at the hearings on the case of providing the educational institutions with perished products.

PLDM lawmaker Tudor Deliu said that the faction requested postponing the drafts included on the agenda today. “Starting from September and till now, we have not had full sessions, and this week, we were announced that the parliament meeting will not be organized then we were announced that it will take place, and now we see the drafts on the agenda are very important and need to be analyzed in details. We ask that today only the six drafts should be debated in the parliament, and those proposed now should be postponed to another date, otherwise we will leave the meeting in protest,” Deliu said.

For his part, PCRM leader Vladimir Voronin noted that the parliamentary hearings on child nutrition in educational institutions from the country must be analyzed in details in the parliament. “During the last meeting, we voted that the premier should come to the plenum, today we see that other people will be present at the report. We do not understand this attitude, therefore we decided to leave the parliament and ask for a special meeting only on this topic, with the presence of persons responsible for this situation,” Voronin said.

PSRM lawmaker Vlad Batrincea said that the last week, it was agreed that the premier should come to hearings in parliament, “but we see that another decision was taken later. The drafts proposed today on the agenda were not approved at the parliament’s standing bureau, therefore PSRM lawmakers are leaving the meeting,” Batrincea said.

Speaker Andrian Candu noted that the last week, the parliament’s plenum decided to organize hearings without clearly mentioning the guests. “We will ask the government to decide on who will be present at these hearings. It seems that some people are looking to do just plays, but in reality they are not interested in the hearings. We will come back to this topic next week and I will request that those who did this play today be punished,” Candu said.

Last week, the MPs asked to organize hearings on child nutrition at the educational institutions, with the participation of premier, health minister and education minister, National Anticorruption Centre’s head and representatives of the National Food Safety Agency, after prosecutors and anticorruption officers detained 16 people in the case on rigging public tenders on providing schools and kindergartens with perished products. In all, 23 people have the status of guilty on this case.  

(Reporter A. Plitoc, Editor L. Alcază)