The additional grant for the implementation of "Moldova Emergency COVID-19 Response Project" was used for its intended purpose, without any significant violations, the Accounts Chamber stated.
This conclusion was made by the auditors of the Accounts Chamber after the audit of financial statements on the use of a grant of $3.48 million, which was provided by the International Development Association (part of the WB group). The grant was provided for the purpose of retroactive funding for two contracts - for the purchase of tests for detecting coronavirus and for the purchase of protective equipment. To conduct the audit, the Accounts Chamber specialists requested and analyzed data from the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Health, the National Health Insurance Agency (CNAM), the Center for Centralized Public Procurement in Healthcare and other 10 government agencies of various levels and subordination. According to the report, in derogation from some legislative provisions and in accordance with the decision of the Emergency Situations Commission, the Center for Centralized Public Procurement in Healthcare urgently provided a procedure for the direct procurement of COVID-19 tests - from CNAM sources and protective equipment - through direct negotiations, without preliminary publication of a participation announcement. Thus, CNAM financed the purchase of tests worth 35.7 million lei, and the Ministry of Finance allocated 36 million lei from the Government Reserve Fund for the purchase of protective equipment. The economic agent, on the basis of the concluded procurement contract, provided the National Agency for Public Health with a batch of tests, which were distributed to Moldova’s medical institutions and fully used by the end of 2020. As for the protective equipment, they were delivered by the economic agent in April-May 2020 to the warehouses of SanFarm-Prim AS. Subsequently, 295 thousand respirators and 142 thousand protective screens were distributed to medical institutions of the country; they should have been enough for three months. But due to the fact that during the pandemic, the SanFarm-Prim warehouse also received protective equipment in donations and humanitarian aid, as of the end of June 2021, only 61% of the stocks of purchased protective equipment (worth 12 million lei) were used. The auditors checked the contracts, accounting documents and other related information, without revealing significant deviations from the established requirements. “The funding organizations correctly and reliably reflected in the reports on the execution of the Mandatory Health Insurance funds and in the financial reports of the Ministry of Health the funds allocated for the emergency purchase of tests for detecting COVID-19 and protective equipment,” the auditors said. // 29.07.2021 – InfoMarket
