Slusari: Spinu’s Dismissal Was a Belated Move Made Under Immense Internal Pressure

Former deputy parliamentary speaker Alexandru Slusari has sharply criticized the activity of former Infrastructure and Regional Development Minister Andrei Spinu. He wrote on social networks that “Spinu was the architect of Ms Sandu’s election campaign before the first round and assured everyone that she would win in the first round and the referendum would be held with a 70% result,” infotag.md reported. ‘Only the personal efforts of Maia Sandu between rounds, the involvement of other MPs, the mobilization of the diaspora and the mistakes of her opponent saved the country from the victory of the criminal-oligarchic forces. Spinu’s departure was a very late step, made under enormous internal pressure. Until the last moment, he did not want to leave,” the former MP wrote. Referring to the energy  issue, Slusari stressed that “the savior of Moldova’s energy sector in October 2021 was trembling in St. Petersburg (in 2021, Spinu was negotiating with Gazprom to sign a new ‘gas contract’, while Gazprom was blackmailing Moldova by stopping gas supplies) not knowing what to do, while the discussion of the contract formula with Gazprom and Putin was led by Ms Sandu through Germany”. “Providing an alternative in gas supply was a long-standing and overdue necessity. PAS promised this and I see nothing heroic. The other thing is that Spinu conducted this operation in a highly incompetent manner and the country lost a lot by paying an inflated gas tariff for 9 months due to excessive purchases at extravagant prices. It was a huge blow to the country’s economic agents and budget when European money went to compensate consumers instead of modernization projects. I am absolutely sure that if Victor Parlicov had been in charge of the Energy Ministry in 2021-2022, the situation in the energy sector would have been much better,” Slusari said. The politician recalled that “Andrei Spinu was twice the lawyer of the Horus - Power Machines tandem of the oligarch, Putin’s friend Mordashov”. “Then only Ms Sandu’s intervention decided to break the contract for the repair of Termoelectrica enterprise with this dynamic duo, while Spinu shouted that only one economic agent in the country could repair Termoelectrica. And now, two years later, we see that Termoelectrica survived without Mordashov,” he emphasized. Slusar joked that in Moldova “today every frog in the Prut River knows about the Leova-Bumbata road”. “The mayor of Leova, who has extensive experience in road repairs, refused to sign the documents for commissioning this section of road. The prosecutor’s office announced that there are two defendants in the criminal case and an independent expertise has been appointed. I am sure that if the prosecutors in our country were depoliticized, there would be no need to delay the examination of the road or to analyze the contracts for the purchase of gas in November 2022 - January 2023, when 84% of the total volume of gas was purchased from one company,” the politician claimed. Slusari cited other examples that in his opinion demonstrate Spinu’s incompetence. “If someone continues to believe that he is a brave man, an effective manager, a savior of the country, a victim of a smear campaign and so on, I am very sorry. You never learnt your lesson,” the politician summarized.