Failure to comply with the recommendations of the anti-corruption expertise over the past 2 years has caused damage to the Moldovan budget by about 2.5 billion lei.
These are the results of the study "Anti-corruption expertise 2019-2020: efficiency, costs, impact", developed with the support of UNDP in Moldova. The authors of the study analyzed how government agencies apply the provisions on anti-corruption expertise - a corruption prevention tool that assesses how the content of draft laws and regulations complies with national and international anti-corruption standards. At the same time, thanks to this experience, the National Anti-Corruption Center (NAC) determines the norms that favor or can contribute to corruption, and develops recommendations to exclude or reduce their consequences. It is reported that in 2019-2020 NAC conducted an anti-corruption expertise of 1,448 draft regulations, of which 768 were draft government resolutions, 577 draft laws and 103 draft departmental acts. Many of them were adopted in the absence of anti-corruption expertise or ignoring the recommendations of the NAC to exclude provisions that may give rise to corruption. The authors of the study calculated that the amount of damage caused to the national public budget by rejected or withdrawn projects exceeded 1.5 billion lei, and the total costs of the adopted projects amounted to 2.5 billion lei. Among the main risks of corruption that have been identified in the draft laws are abuse of office, takeover, conflict of interest, patronage, passive corruption, active corruption, undue influence and profiting from it. They were mainly found in regulations governing such industries as "economy and trade", "budget and finance", "education, culture, cults and the media." The study found that in 2019 the number of government regulations that ignore anti-corruption expertise began to increase, and in 2020 their share reached 30%. And the number of projects in which there was a risk of tax evasion and fraud tripled in 2020. The study was prepared within the framework of the project “Fighting Corruption by Strengthening Integrity in Moldova” implemented by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in our country with the support of the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Earlier, with the support of UNDP in Moldova, there was also assessed the effectiveness of anti-corruption expertise for 2010-2015 and 2016-2018// 12.10.2021 — InfoMarket
