Moldovan parliament speaker explains need to create Moldova Project: “We must concentrate expertise in a single entity”

Parliament Speaker Igor Grosu supports the government’s initiative to create Moldova Project, a single structure for managing strategic infrastructure projects, describing it as a measure to optimize existing capacities. The speaker made statements to this effect ahead of the parliament’s plenary meeting.

Igor Grosu noted that, until now, ministries implementing technical assistance projects had created their own project implementation units, with managers, accountants, and other specialists. In his opinion, concentrating these skills within a single entity would allow resources to be used more efficiently and strengthen implementation capacity.

“Over time, the following practice emerged: each ministry or ministries that had projects—technical assistance projects—created a project implementation unit. [...] Now, the government’s initiative is to have a single entity which is to manage all technical assistance projects at the ministries,” Igor Grosu said.

The parliament speaker emphasized that the new structure should also consolidate the expertise required for procurement and the preparation of terms of reference, particularly in the case of large-scale projects.

“Capacities, for example, in procurement and in drafting terms of reference for procurements, especially for major procurements, are not sufficiently developed. We must concentrate them in a single entity,” Grosu said.

According to him, the creation of Moldova Project would not mean multiplying existing structures but, on the contrary, consolidating them into a single implementation unit.

“We will not have a multitude of implementation units; instead, we will have a single implementation unit,” the parliament speaker said.

Igor Grosu was also asked about the budget allocated to the new structure and salary expenses. He suggested that they should be compared with the expenses currently incurred by all existing implementation units.

“I suggest asking the government for the calculations: how much these PIUs, or implementation units, spent individually. I believe the costs were higher,” Grosu said.

Prime Minister Vasile Tofan today announced the creation of Moldova Project, a single structure meant to implement the government’s strategic projects, and proposed Mircea Esanu, the current director of the Public Services Agency, to lead it.

According to the PM, the main problem in the case of more major projects is not a lack of funding, but limited implementation capacity, caused, among other factors, by responsibilities being divided among several institutions and by a shortage of specialists.

According to information published by the State Chancellery, the initiative aims to establish a single institutional instrument for coordinating, managing, monitoring and evaluating the implementation of strategic national infrastructure projects financed from external and domestic sources.