Former Moldovan transports minister, two business people to appear before judge

Chisinau, 29 June /MOLDPRES/ - The former transports and roads infrastructure minister, Iurie Chirinciuc, will be tried for influence peddling and abuse of power. The Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office finished the criminal prosecution which was to be submitted to court, the press service of the Prosecutor General’s Office has reported.   

Two economic agents, accused of complicity in influence peddling, will appear before judge along with the former transports minister.

All the three suspects reached an agreement on recognizing the guilt. Thus, the criminal file is to be considered in special procedure, based n the evidence managed in the phase of criminal prosecution. At the same time, a distinct criminal file was disjointed, still under investigation.    

According to the prosecutors, the former transports minister, along with the heads of two construction companies would have organized a criminal scheme in order to earn particularly large sums of money. Thus, the defendants would have exerted pressures on a company that won tenders financed by the European Investment Bank (EIB), in order to oblige it to cede a part of the volume of works to affiliated economic agents.  

In 2016-2017, the minister, through decision-makers of the State Administration of Roads, would have created obstacles to the winning economic agent by failing to approve acts on carrying out the works, by procrastination of approvals, as well as by demanding that this economic agent signs subcontracts with firms close to these decision-makers.  

In its capacity of beneficiary of the project R6 M1 Ialoveni RSP/W6/05 (project financial by EIB), the State Administration of Roads (ASD), represented by the acting director general, employed an international engineer-supervisor for the relation contractor-beneficiary. Despite the fact that the engineer-supervisor had to get the approval of the beneficiary only in emergency cases, the ASD head asked him to demand approval for all works within the project. 

As a result of special investigation measures, it was found out that the actions described above were synchronized with the organization of meetings with the participation of the minister and the economic agent, during which pressures were exerted on the economic agent, among which threats with the cancellation of contract and its introduction in the black list. At the same time, as a result of  criminal prosecution actions, a last February meeting was documented, during which a meeting was fixed between the transports minister, ASD director, managers of the companies affiliated with the economic agent that won the contract on restoration of the road R6M1 – Ialoveni. During discussions, the winner economic agent was demanded to cede 50 per cent of the volume of works (about nine million euros of all sum) to companies affiliated to the official. Subsequently, referring to an instruction by the minister, the managers of the affiliated economic agents would have claimed from the same economic agent five per cent of the contract’s sum, i.e about 400,000 euros and a part of the money (80,000 euros) was to go decision-makers from ASD.   

Also, the former minister is accused on another count – abuse of power, expressed by organization of works of repair and capital construction worth 8.4 million lei of a segment of road to the Floreni village, western Ungheni district, which was not reasoned economically. The enterprise Fortina Labis Ltd is placed at the entrance in this settlement, the real beneficiary of which is Iurie Chirinciuc. Moreover, the area of the concerned enterprise was asphalted with money earmarked from the Road Fund.  

Given that the criminal prosecution is over and the cause was sent to court, with indictment for consideration on the merits, the judge applied a preventive measure against a representative of the economic agent – obligation not to leave the settlement, and against the minister and another representative of the economic agent – home arrest.   

(Reporter A. Plitoc, editor A. Raileanu)