The Economist of the Institute for Development and Social Initiatives (IDIS) "Viitorul" Diana Enachi, participated on October 3-5, 2023, in Paris, at the Plenary Meeting of the Anti-Corruption Network for Eastern Europe and Central Asia (ACN) of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). During the event, the reports of the fifth monitoring round of the subregional peer evaluation program of the Istanbul Anti-Corruption Action Plan (IAP) for the Republic of Moldova, Armenia and Azerbaijan were presented and adopted.
The meeting was also attended by: Iulian Rusu, director of the National Anticorruption Center (CNA), Veronica Mihailov-Moraru, Minister of Justice (MJ), Galina Bostan, president of the Centre for Analysis and Prevention of Corruption (CAPC) and Daniel Goinic, director of Human rights program from the Legal Resources Center from Moldova (CRJM).
Diana Enachi, as a civil society representative, has actively participated in the monitoring process, providing comments and contributions, particularly on business integrity and public procurement integrity components. Within the ACN Plenary, Diana Enachi highlighted the civil society position, namely the fact that the monitoring report is comprehensive and objective. According to the economist, while the Republic of Moldova has made important progress in terms of integrity and anti-corruption reforms, there are a number of other sectors with outstanding issues, including: conflicts of interests and assets disclosure; business integrity; public procurement; protection of whistleblowers and enforcement of corruption offences.
With regard to the Integrity in Public Procurement, Diana Enachi said that there are positive developments, mainly in terms of the legislation that which to a great extent transposes the EU Directive, both on classical procurement, as well as on sectoral procurement (utilities). There are also legal provisions on integrity and managing conflict on interest in procurement. However, there are deficiencies in the law enforcement, and there are no effective mechanisms for control and enforcement of sanctions, which would hold responsible for public procurement within public authorities. Although in the public procurement monitoring process, said Diana Enachi, civil society is identifying a large spectrum of corruption risks, including conflicts of interest, in fact, sanctions for law violations are not imposed. We do not have one single natural person debarred after being convicted for corruption offenses.
Another important component, mentioned by Diana Enachi, is the e-procurement system, which is one of the key elements when it comes to transparency and integrity of the procurement process. The current e-procurement system Mtender, in place since 2018, had a substantial contribution in fostering transparency. However, the platform lacks a number of key technical functionalities and it does not fully correspond to the legal provisions, does not ensure the entire procurement process to be organised electronically, and does not allow public authorities to actually apply the law and streamline the procurement process while focusing on ensuring value for public money.
”It is important to highlight that in the future any improvements and functionalities development in the e-procurement system would translate into substantial improvement of the transparency, corruption and conflicts of interests prevention indicators. There are recent developments which will be subject for the next round of monitoring (for 2024). A new comprehensive and ambitious Program for Developing Public Procurement sector was recently adopted by the Government and consists of a number of ambitious objectives to be achieved by the end of 2026. I think that is a great basis for further reforms in the sector.”, sayd Diana Enachi.
The Plenary Meeting of the Anti-Corruption Network for Eastern Europe and Central Asia (ACN) of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is a support platform for the countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia in the fight against corruption, providing a regional framework for promoting anti-corruption activities and facilitating engagement and exchange of experience on good anti-corruption practices in the region. The Istanbul Anti-Corruption Action Plan is a mutual evaluation program of the ACN, which brings together ten countries in the region, and was launched in 2003.
There were elaborated alternative monitoring reports on the implementation of Anti-Corruption Plans for the years 2018-2020 that were designed by The Institute for Development and Social Initiatives in Straseni, Ialoveni, and Hincesti districts.
The report on the alternative monitoring of the implementation of the actions (29 in number) provided in the Local Anti-Corruption Plan of the Straseni district attests that 22 actions were accomplished (76%), three actions are partially completed (10%), and 4 are not done (14%). 24 of the actions (83%) hit the deadlines, and the other 5 have exceeded the deadline. Based on the synthesized data, it was stated that the progress on the implementation of the Local Anti-Corruption Plan of Straseni district is high.
Alternative implementation monitoring report (56 in number) provided in the Local Anti-Corruption Plan of Hincești district attests that 11 actions are performed (19.6%), 9 actions are partially completed (16.1%), and 36 are not completed (64.3%). Most of the actions are in progress (96.4%), and two of the actions hit the purposed deadline (3.6%). Based on the synthesized data, it was shown that the progress regarding the implementation of the Local Anti-Corruption Action Plan of Hincești district is an average one, although the progress is visible.
Alternative implementation monitoring report (35 in number) provided in the Local Anti-Corruption Plan of Ialoveni district attests that 11 actions are performed (35%), 17 actions are partially completed (49%), and 7 are not completed (16%). 34 actions (96%) are ongoing, one action is with the implementation deadline observed / action is ongoing, and one action is with the implementation deadline exceeded. Based on the synthesized data, it is found that the progress regarding the implementation of the Local Anti-Corruption Action Plan of the Ialoveni district is a good one.
The reports identify the achievements, weaknesses, gaps, and inconsistencies related to the implementation of the three Local Anti-Corruption Plans for the years 2018-2020. There were also provided some conclusions and recommendations.
The reports were prepared under the Small Grants Program for Alternative Monitoring of the Sectoral and Local Anti-Corruption Plans of the Project: "Fighting corruption by strengthening integrity in the Republic of Moldova", implemented by the United Nations Development Program in Moldova, with the financial support of the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
