Moldova's Public Property Agency unveils findings on situation at Moldtelecom company

Chisinau, 18 September /MOLDPRES/ - The Public Property Agency (APP) today presented a string of findings on the work of the Moldtelecom Company in the last years.  

The preliminary findings were unveiled after the carrying out of an audit on the company’s financial situation. APP director Eugeniu Moraru said that, following the audit, decision-makers had established more aspects “which show the presence of vicious practices aimed at promoting certain economic agents, as well as at making groundless payments.”   

An example in this respect is the conclusion of contracts which, according to Moraru, would be “obviously disadvantageous to the economic and financial interests of Moldtelecom.” Thus, in April 2013, the company signed with an enterprise with foreign capital a general agreement on the organization and maintenance of a centralized database for implementing the portability of numbers in Moldova. Under the contract’s terms, Moldtelecom is obliged to pay a monthly bill of three eurocents for each number allocated to the operator through licence, including for fixed numbers. Moldtelecom has already paid an overall sum of about 5.7 million euros to this enterprise for services which, according to me, are practically inexistent, which represents a direct damage for Moldtelecom. A mere calculation shows us that the average cost of a single ported number is about 172 euros,” Moraru said.   

At the same time, in October 2012, Moldtelecom concluded a contract with a non-resident company on the externalization of services as regards the international voice traffic. “In fact, under the contract, decision-makers legalized Moldtelecom’s potential for the development of a third company, while the company was able to develop the concerned sector and to benefit from the opportunities existing on market, which actually led to the missing of an additional profit. Moldtelecom’s incomes related to this contract have been decreasing,” Moraru noted.    

The APP head also presented examples on deficiencies found when holding tenders. Thus, according to the audit’s findings, a limited company in the sector of passive optic networks represents the most important provider of Moldtelecom, reaching, on some periods, to a share of 57 per cent of all procurements operated by the company. The data unveiled shows that, in 2018, this ltd company turned to account a budget of 350 million lei. An enterprise in the field of producing wiring ranks second in the weight of Moldtelecom’s acquisitions, as Moldtelecom has bought wiring only from this enterprise in the last ten years.  

The audit also showed cases of use of the company’s resources on personal purposes and in on purposes of fictitious employment of people. “The former head of the company benefited from a prize worth 250,000 lei, for reasons that he would have provided a net profit of the company by 288 per cent higher against the scheduled one. In reality, while comparing the company’s real profit in 2017 and 2018, it is found out that the profit made in 2018 is, in fact, smaller and respectively, the prize was provided groundlessly,” the APP director also said.          

At the same time, decision-makers discovered cases in which the trips of employees, declared as business ones, were made most likely on personal purposes, although they implied significant spending by the company. At the same time, Moldtelecom contracted the holding of a financial audit for 2017 by an international company, which actually has not been presented till present either, although the term expired and the service was fully paid.     

Eugeniu Moraru informed that internal investigations had been initiated based on some findings. In another context, Moraru specified that Moldtelecom was not on the agenda of privatization.