Moldovan PM unveils activity report

Chisinau, 20 January /MOLDPRES/- 2016 was a difficult year for Moldova, but it was a year in which the government managed to regain credibility of foreign partners and rekindle hope that in the country there are opportunities to live as in countries today unfortunately manpower is exported. Prime Minister Pavel Filip made the statement on the occasion of cabinet’s swearing in office.

The premier noted that the current government had been taken over in a moment of deep political, economic and social crisis, therefore the social measures were priority for easy up the living conditions of those categories of citizens who were facing many issues. “We increased the minimum guaranteed salary in the real sector from 1,900 to 2,100 lei, we indexed the pensions by ten per cent. Yes, I speak about the pensions’ indexation as about an achievement, at it seemed to be unreal in the beginning of the year too. We increased the allowances for bringing up children. At the same time, we started a very necessary reform of the pensions system, which is to ensure the fairness in the system and will create resources to back it in the long term. It is not fair when the pension of some categories accounts for 75 per cent of the average salary, while for the overwhelming majority of the pensioners this replacement rate is thrice lower, of only 26 per cent of the salary. At the same time, it is not fair when some tax payers have also other unexplainable facilities, which deal, for instance, with the retirement age or length of pensionable service. These inequities will be removed by the reform which we implement,” he said.

At the same time, the premier remarked that it had managed to unblock great projects, meant to bring much more consistent effects for each citizen. “About 500 million euros represents the overall external sums de-blocked for Moldova in 2016 alone. The second figure: over 350 million euros unlocked for the next years already. The third figure: an economic growth of 3.5 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), forecast by specialists. And, in the end, the fourth one – the inflation rate of 2.4 per cent, the second lowest inflation rate in the 25 years of independence. In last November, for instance, our country signed an Agreement with the International Monetary Fund worth 180 million dollars. Due to it, Moldova is backed in the adoption of structural reforms in the next years. This would have not been possible, if we did not prove that we are able to adopt and implement difficult reforms”, he said.

Also, the premier reiterated that the foreign policy vector was the European one. “Both the government I lead and the parliament will implement the Association Agreement with every determination. These two institutions are fully responsible and also have the constitutional force to fulfill the commitments already taken by our country”, he said.

Filip remarked that the recovering the billion remained as a priority. “Over 700 million lei has been recovered in Moldova. We also plan to additionally recover more than 1.5 billion lei also at the expense of selling banks’ assets. Over 900 million lei has been already reimbursed to the National Bank of Moldova, a process which continues. At the same time, the work of the law-enforcement bodies investigating this big fraud was focused including on the part of returning the embezzled financial means, at the expense of alienating the sequestrated assets of perpetrators, which will make possible the collection of more than two billion lei. Additionally, on the external stage, the KROLL investigation has already identified 600 million dollars and, at the first phase, it will come up with a concrete plan on recovery, both of the embezzled money, which got into banking accounts of other states and of the assets got from them”, he said.    

Filip government was voted on 20 January 2016. Supporters of the Dignity and Truth Platform, Party of Socialists and Our Party protested in front of the parliament’s headquarters and asked the MPs not to vote for the cabinet and opt for snap polls.

(Reporter A. Plitoc, editor A. Răileanu)