Sandu on MoldATSA Payments: Several Hundred People May Have Been Beneficiaries

President Maia Sandu has called on the National Anticorruption Center (NAC) to determine whether MoldATSA director Dumitru Vangheli acted legally when signing the contracts under which the company’s employees received supplementary benefits. Sandu said one of the central issues the investigation must address is whether the CEO had legal grounds to conclude these contracts and authorize the payments, noi.md reports. “The NAC must establish whether the manager had the legal right to approve payments, to sign these contracts left and right, and to pay out the money,” the president said. The head of state stressed that the situation must be considered primarily in terms of the legal validity of the contracts signed and the payments made under them. According to Sandu, this is not a case of someone simply stealing money from the enterprise, since the payments were made on a contractual basis. “This isn’t about someone coming in and stealing money. After all, there was a contract. That contract said: you do the work, and I pay you,” Sandu explained, emphasizing that the relevant authorities must establish precisely the legal nature of these contracts and the payments made under them. According to the president, many employees received the supplementary benefits in excessive amounts. “These people received excessively high supplements. [...] These additional payments were granted to several hundred employees, so this was not an isolated case,” Sandu said. Maia Sandu also said that the MoldATSA director had been “very generous with all employees”, including himself. In this regard, the president believes public authorities must thoroughly examine the circumstances around the payments made and determine their compliance with the rule of law. The head of state emphasized that the review must be performed regardless of the positions or individuals it may involve. “Everyone must comply with the law, and the law is the same for everyone,” Maia Sandu said. The NAC is thus expected to determine whether Dumitru Vangheli had legal grounds to conclude the relevant contracts and authorize supplement payments to MoldATSA employees, as well as whether the amounts of these payments and the mechanism for granting them complied with the law.