The Court of Accounts of the Republic of Moldova (CoA) has examined the Compliance Audit Report on the formation, management and use of public financial resources and public assets by the Prosecutor General’s Office (PG) in 2018-2022. Vulnerabilities were found in the segments of procurement and execution of capital repair works, execution of fuel expenditure and inventory of assets, a press release issued by the institution said.

Contacted by ZdG, Violina Moraru, spokeswoman for the Prosecutor General’s Office, said that the PG has investigated itself and a criminal case has been opened in this regard. The case is being handled by the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (PA), it was opened in May 2023.

In 2018-2022, the bodies of the General Prosecutor’s Office were allocated a total amount of 1.8 billion lei from the state budget, the cash and actual expenses turned out to be 1.7 billion lei.

“The Court of Accounts concluded that, during the audited period, the General Prosecutor’s Office had a partially functional system in terms of compliance, which led to multiple irregularities in the use of public money, including risks of fraud, as well as mismanagement of public assets,” the CoA press release states.

During the meeting, the main findings of the audit report on each component subject to verification were discussed.

With regard to the budget planning of the General Prosecutor’s Office, the Court of Auditors found that the mechanism applied in the process of drafting the draft budget of the General Prosecutor’s Office is not in line with the Law on Public Finance and Budgetary-Fiscal Accountability, in terms of the institution’s autonomy. Thus, according to the legal provisions, the Prosecutor’s Office must prepare its draft budget on its own, according to the needs, which is then to be approved by the Ministry of Finance and the Superior Council of Prosecutors and submitted to the Government for approval, with subsequent inclusion in the draft state budget. In fact, the draft budgets of the General Prosecutor’s Office for the audited period were prepared within the expenditure limits set by the Ministry of Finance and were not correlated to the real needs of the institution.

In terms of the use of budgetary means, the following was found:

• 86.3% of total expenditure is accounted for by staff costs and related payments.  In the execution of this expenditure, the audit did not find any significant deviations, except in 2018, when the predetermined limit of 5% was exceeded in the granting of awards, amounting to 8.9 million lei;
• there is a systemic problem with the obligation to grant annual leave to prosecutors, who accumulated about 59 thousand unused leave days. The audit team estimated that the amount of leave allowances at the end of 2022 amounted to more than 53 million lei, which may cause imbalances in the budget execution of the entity;
• despite the minimum budget for current expenditure and for the purchase of non-financial assets, some of this expenditure was made without respecting the principle of legality in the use of public money. Thus, the use of budgetary means with suspicions of fraud is revealed, namely in the purchase of licences and the development of the “E-File” CIS. By accepting and paying for the respective development services, the budget was caused losses of 1.8 million lei;
• without taking into account the fact that the central office of the General Prosecutor’s Office, the specialized prosecutor’s offices and the territorial prosecutor’s offices were using computer technology, morally and physically worn out, in the absence of an assessment of the needs, the General Prosecutor’s Office decided to purchase in 2017-2021 licensed software on computers and servers, in the total amount of 21.5 million lei;  
• in the procurement and payment of these goods, the audit reveals the presence of illegalities and reasonable suspicions of fraud, consisting of the following:

1. the purchase of computer licensing products at an increased cost of 2.4 million lei compared to the price agreed with the company supplying the software products;
2. the presence of reasonable suspicions of fraud: a) in the payment of licences for computers to the value of 2.5 million lei, which were not actually delivered and installed, according to the minutes of receipt and delivery of the licences; b) in the purchase of 48 licences for servers to the value of 1.1 million lei, servers which the General Prosecutor’s Office does not even own. Through these actions, the responsible actors in the General Prosecutor’s Office caused losses to the state budget in the amount of 3.6 million lei;
3. dubious buy-back of licenses by the General Prosecutor’s Office, 7.6 million lei being paid from the budget, in the absence of confirmatory documents or amendments to the Licensing Agreement.

The audit revealed the persistence of systemic irregularities in the procurement and execution of capital repair works of the prosecution offices, thus the following irregularities were found:

• the inadequate planning and substantiation of the needs for the purchase of repair works, which led to additional works being carried out for the repair of electrical networks, heating networks, etc;
• the irregular purchase and execution of repair works in the absence of project documentation and legally checked estimates, amounting to 17.7 million lei, which led to disagreements between the Attorney General’s Office and contractors regarding the volume and quality of the works carried out and to disputes in the courts, which may result in losses to the budget;
• the admission of discrepancies between the prices set out in the tender estimate and those in the minutes concerning the execution of the capital repair works at the PG’s premises in the municipality of Kempen. Chisinau, bd. Ștefan cel Mare și Sfânt, 73, as a result, making unjustified expenses of 485,1 thousand lei.

The Attorney General’s Office did not have a regulatory process in place for fuel expenses, as there was evidence of exceeding the established mileage limits for the entity’s transport units, as well as the establishment and approval of excessive fuel consumption norms for some transport units. As a result, it is certified that for 17 vehicles only (Dacia Logan model) the institution incurred non-compliant budgetary expenses in the amount of 0.3 million lei.

There are also multiple deviations and non-conformities in the process of management of public assets by the General Prosecutor’s Office. Thus, the lack of effective monitoring of the assets under management has led to the fact that two buildings are registered in the accounts of the General Prosecutor’s Office, which according to the cadastral records have been alienated to individuals. One of these buildings was a former administrative building of the Anenii Noi Territorial Prosecutor’s Office, and in 2009 its use was changed into a housing block, and with the consent of the Prosecutor’s Office management it was privatised.

As for the second building, it was to be transferred to the town hall of Anenii-Noiren. Rezina by the Prosecutor General’s Office, which in fact did not happen, in the meantime the APL initiated the process of its privatization, the building being sold to a natural person.

Similarly, the audit found that the General Prosecutor’s Office did not register 19 land plots related to the offices of the territorial prosecutor’s offices with an area of 2 ha and a garage in its accounting records, and that one administrative building and 12 garages were not registered with the land registry, which is contrary to the regulatory framework in force and implies risks to their integrity.

A vulnerable aspect in the entity is the inventory of the patrimony. It is noted that in the last ten years a comprehensive inventory of all assets under the management of the General Prosecutor’s Office and some structural subdivisions has not been carried out in accordance with the rules, in particular, this process did not include assets under the management of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, PCCOCS and the City Prosecutor’s Office. Chisinau.

The lack of decisions regarding this building has led to its deterioration, with repair work having been halted for more than 15 years. Expenditure from the state budget for the renovation of this building amounted to 26.2 million lei, while there was a decrease of 2.2 million lei in the expenditure incurred compared to the previous audit.

The Court of Auditors made 16 audit recommendations to remedy the weaknesses identified and to improve the situation.