Opinion: “PAS Has Driven Moldova to the Brink”

Moldova is approaching the anniversary of its independence with an empty state treasury, which lacks even the funds needed for a planned increase in teachers’ salaries, and with increasingly alarming financial and economic prospects  

Semyon ALBU, RTA: The 35th anniversary of our republic’s independence is now just around the corner, yet the country is approaching this landmark occasion in one of the worst states in its history. Instead of giving its citizens a reason to feel proud of the country’s achievements, PAS has “gifted” us nothing but deeply negative feelings and emotions: anxiety, anger, a sense of injustice, hopelessness, and so on. Yes, the anniversary of Moldova’s statehood, which the authorities, almost mockingly, intend to mark with an extremely costly, large-scale and therefore completely inappropriate military parade, is likely to be overshadowed by dark colors and somber tones, no matter how hard the government-friendly media try to present a different picture. After all, there is little else to boast about these days besides militarization, something that is practically unnecessary to the overwhelming majority of our citizens. The fundamental purpose of the state is to ensure its citizens a decent and secure standard of living. The ruling party has failed at this task completely and, it would seem, irreversibly. That is why, as we approach the country’s main national holiday, we should not expect any pleasant surprises but rather developments such as the 41% increase in the gas tariff approved today, meaning that consumers will now pay more than 20 lei per cubic meter. But this is merely a grain of sand on the beach of the financial and economic troubles Moldova is facing today, troubles that are already hitting people’s wallets hard and are likely to do so even more severely in the near future. This deeply troubling state of affairs is the predictable result of the “wise” domestic and foreign policy pursued by the country’s leadership over the past five years. In effect, Maia Sandu and her political brainchild have created the perfect recipe for driving an entire country to the brink of the abyss at record speed. Of course, it is not as though Moldova was ever particularly prosperous, but, to be fair, just six or seven years ago, even under the controversial rule of Vlad Plahotniuc, Moldova was still a self-sufficient and functioning state whose political system could withstand, relatively painlessly, even a suspension of external funding following the annulment of the Chisinau mayoral election results. But those days now seem like relics of a distant past compared with the situation today. A whole string of governance failures, an inability to anticipate and properly assess risks and threats, and dangerous maneuvers in foreign policy – these and other “achievements” of PAS have brought us to our current point of no return. Almost everything we were promised during the 2020-2021 election campaigns has turned out to be a lie. How did Moldova end up in such dire financial straits that there is not even enough money for a planned (!) increase in teachers’ salaries? There are several factors behind this. First, the bureaucratic apparatus has grown to an outrageous extent. Although the country’s population continues to shrink rapidly due to both natural decline and mass emigration, the size of the government bureaucracy keeps steadily increasing. The number of state institutions is growing, their staffs are expanding, and their salaries and allowances are becoming increasingly “generous”. And that is assuming they operate with at least some minimal degree of efficiency. Then there are organizations such as the notorious Patriot Centre, with a budget running into tens of millions of lei, whose actual purpose is difficult to discern, but which certainly does not appear to be doing anything to improve people’s lives. As we have seen from the example of Maia Sandu’s cousin, some officials earning million-lei salaries may do virtually nothing, fail to show up at work, or even be absent from the country altogether. And there are at least hundreds of such de facto parasites. What we have learned from journalistic investigations over the past few months, about the president’s cousin, about young PAS protégés without higher education holding senior government positions, and so on, is merely the tip of the iceberg. According to some estimates, simply maintaining this additional layer of bureaucracy added to the state apparatus under PAS has cost Moldova €1 billion or more. That is an enormous amount of money that could have gone toward capital investment but was instead effectively squandered. The same can be said of the failed justice reform, which, instead of cleansing the system, amounted to little more than placing it under the control of the ruling regime. This explains the utter ineffectiveness of the fight against corruption, which under the current regime is flourishing in full force, manifesting itself in a whole array of illicit enrichment schemes at state-owned enterprises, in government tenders and procurement, and so on. A major role in the country’s economic depletion has been played by the so-called “energy independence” policy. Instead of stable contracts for electricity supplies from the MoldGRES and gas from Russia’s Gazprom, we decided to play tough and principled, completely abandoning any energy resources in one way or another connected to Russia and entering the free market, where a cornucopia of benefits was supposedly waiting for us. In the end, spot gas purchases on the exchanges have turned into a lottery in which, rather predictably, we lose every single time and the population and businesses are bearing the full brunt of it. And now PAS, whose leaders once protested against the “unaffordable” price of 5 lei per cubic meter, are calmly approving an increase to 20 lei, while pretending that nothing particularly serious has happened. The electricity situation has turned into an outright fiasco as well. Not only are we now regularly at risk of failing to secure the full volume we need and forced to arrange emergency supply contracts virtually on a day-to-day basis, but the prices for this crisis-driven electricity are also breaking records. The authorities are therefore already warning that the electricity tariff will be revised in September as well and, naturally, upwards. Is it any wonder that, seeing such a state of affairs, investors have no desire to come to Moldova? The country’s investment attractiveness, which Alexandru Muntуanu was supposed to improve, is plunging into the abyss. Moldova has already fallen outside the top 100 countries in the latest ranking, dropping by 19 places at once. The state has neither the money nor much desire to invest in real production and infrastructure. So where, in principle, is development and forward progress supposed to come from? Now add to the mix such “ingredients” as expensive domestic borrowing, a doubling of the national debt, and, consequently, a sharp increase in debt-servicing costs. Quite a “delicious” recipe, isn’t it? Financial collapse has so far been avoided only thanks to loans and external assistance, primarily from the EU. However, even this lifeline is beginning to dry up. Brussels has more than enough problems of its own, and there is little reason to keep providing additional funds to our “blockheads”, after all, it is not an election year. Is it any wonder, then, that even official forecasts are being revised downward, with expectations of slower GDP growth, declining purchasing power and real household incomes, higher inflation, and so on? To last as long as possible the government is now seeking to dig even deeper into our pockets through its so-called tax reform, in an attempt to squeeze whatever is left to be taken. Experts have warned that any increase in budget revenues from these measures will be short-lived and that, in the longer term, they will only lead to further economic contraction and a shrinking tax base. But no one in PAS seems willing to listen. The money is needed here and now, and, in any case, the “yellow” camp appears to live by the principle of “after us the deluge”. Only the deluge has already arrived, unfortunately for all of us.