Dinu Plîngău
Seven State-Owned Enterprises Without Legal Documents
For example, the Ministry of Economic Development and Digitalization is listed in government registries as the founder of seven state-owned enterprises. The ministry itself claims that it does not have their founding documents and that these enterprises have never appeared on its balance sheet. The ministry is currently trying to reconstruct the history of these enterprises.
“Without shifting responsibility to other ministries, we have submitted a formal request. Moreover, our archives do not even contain the founding documents or source materials that would confirm that our ministry is, in fact, the founder of these enterprises. We have contacted the ASP (Agency for Public Services—Logos Press note) with a request to provide us with all available information, including source documents, in order to untangle this situation and understand which other ministries may be listed as founders. “As for these seven enterprises, as was the case with a number of other ministries, it turned out that the relevant authorities were formally transferred to us, but in 2023, some of the information was lost,” said Oleg Bivol, State Secretary of the Ministry of Economic Development and Digitalization.
Formal Status, Minimal Oversight
A similar situation has arisen at the Ministry of Education and Research. Although the ministry is listed as the founding body of ten state-owned enterprises, its leadership acknowledges that it has not coordinated their activities, does not have its own representatives on their boards of directors, and does not have complete information about their assets.
“We do not interact with these institutions, have not coordinated their activities in any way, and do not have representatives on their administrative boards. As for real estate, we still need to clarify this issue together with our colleagues from the legal department,” said Galina Rusu, Secretary General of the Ministry of Education and Research.
Search for Lost Data
The situation is no better at the Ministry of Defense. According to State Secretary Sergiu Popa, the process of reorganizing the National Army Specialists Training Center is complicated by the lack of reliable information about the entity’s assets.
“In 2018, a government resolution was adopted, following which measures were taken to transform the enterprise into a public institution. However, this process was never completed due to outstanding debts to the tax authorities. In 2021, when we assumed management and oversight of this institution, the reorganization process began. But it proved to be extremely difficult, as the actual condition of the enterprise was unknown. “We had to conduct a full inventory of assets, since at that time neither the ASP nor the Ministry of Defense had reliable information about what assets the enterprise possessed,” Plop noted.
As Logos Press previously reported, 1,359 state-owned enterprises have been registered in Moldova since 1991. Following numerous reorganizations and liquidations, 515 enterprises remain in operation today.
During the work of a special commission led by MP Dinu Plîngău, it became clear that a significant portion of state-owned enterprises had not been transferred to the management of the Public Property Agency, as intended, and that the founding ministries had effectively lost control over many of them.
