Two former Moldovan officials heard on privatization of Air Moldova company
14:16 | 11.09.2019 Category: Economic
Chisinau, 11 September /MOLDPRES/ - The inquiry commission for analyzing the way of organizing the privatization and granting to concession public property (2013-2019) today organized hearings on the privatization of the Air Moldova company.
The former economics and infrastructure minister, Chiril Gaburici, and the former secretary general at the Justice Ministry, Nicolae Esanu, answered questions by the commission members. Other three persons invited to the hearings have not come. These are the former PM, Pavel Filip, and two representatives of the Blue Air and Civil Aviation Group companies. The head of the aforementioned commission, Igor Munteanu, asked the Interior Ministry to invite the representatives of the Blue Air and Civil Aviation Group to hearings next week.
At the hearings, Chiril Gaburici said that Air Moldova had been privatized, as the company was in a difficult situation, triggered by more factors, including the market conditions in which it worked, lack of experience, as well as conditions emerged after the appearance of other air operators on market. Chiril Gaburici answered more questions with “I don’t know,” noting that the questions were within the competence of the Public Properties Agency (APP).
Asked whether the privatization transaction was successful, Chiril Gaburici said that he cannot make an analysis on how successful the transaction had been, as he does not know the data of the contract and what decision-makers managed to carry out so far. “I understand that there are many debts at present too and the new company does not observe its obligations. The goal was clear: to bring a player from the sector, who is to be able to change the situation,” Gaburici noted.
The former state secretary at the Justice Ministry said that, before the company’s privatization, decision-makers had discussed that “it is not serious” for the privatization tender to be won by a recently founded firm. At the same time, according to Esanu, the buyer had no obligation to pay off the debts of the air company, as they are to be paid by Air Moldova.
Igor Munteanu asked Nicolae Esanu whether the privatization process had observed the state’s interests. Esanu answered that “all privatization processes which took place in Moldova were organized according to procedures which do not observe the public interest best of all.” “One of the elements is the term of the bids’ formulation. It is impossible for a serious bidder to come on a period of 39 or 69 days. This term is insufficient. From this viewpoint, certainly we can say that Moldova’s interests were not observed; yet, taking into account the way things were managed on all the privatization period, then we cannot speak that, in this case, the privatization somehow harmed our country in a particular way,” Esanu stressed.
The hearings in the case of Air Moldova’s started last week, when more former officials came to the inquiry commission, including the former state secretary at the Economics and Infrastructure Ministry, Vitalie Iurcu, former economics and infrastructure minister, Octavian Calmic, former APP director and ex-head of the Air Moldova administrative board, Vladimir Baldovici, the director general of Air Moldova, Iulian Scorpan.
The Air Moldova Moldovan Company was purchased by the Romanian company Civil Aviation Group Ltd at a commercial tender announced by APP, last autumn. The value of the sale and purchase transaction exceeded 1.2 billion lei, of which 50 million lei was transferred to the state budget and the rest of the sum represents debts of Air Moldova, which the investor committed to pay off. The Civil Aviation Group Ltd Company is founded by a group of investors, with the biggest share owned by the internationally famous company Blue Air.
