Civil Society Congress accuses SA Moldtelecom of employing fraudulent schemes

The Civil Society Congress, in a news conference on May 19, presented videos showing, according to the organization’s chairman Fiodor Ghelici, an employee of the law division of the national telecoms carrier SA Moldtelecom. He would have taken bribe from the director of a limited liability company that had contractual relations with Moldtelecom. Fiodor Ghelici said the limited liability company signed a contract for the extraction of precious metals from the equipment of broken telephone stations with Moldtelecom six years ago. Under the contract, 66% of the value of the extracted metals that were sold to the state were transferred to the accounts of Moldtelecom. The rest of the money remained to the company. According to Ghelici, this scheme had been used until last spring, when the administration of Moldtelecom was changed. Then, the representative of the law division asked that the company provide another 10% as recompense for maintaining the contract, besides the 66%. Another scheme started to be used last summer. The employee of Moldtelecom already claimed US$2.5 dollars per number. If a telephone station with 2,000 numbers was closed, the recompense for Moldtelecom totaled US$5,000. The chairman of the Civil Society Congress said the employee obeyed the orders of the administration of Moldtelecom. The director of the limited liability company allocated thus US$48,000 in two tranches. The money represented debts to SA Moldtelecom. Fiodor Ghelici also said that the employee of Moldtelecom did not indicate the transaction in the accounts. “It is evident that this employee will be fired, while the politicians will comment on what happened. The truth is that those who claim they are innocent find scapegoats. This is typical of the politicians,” Fiodor Ghelici said, adding that the same scheme was employed in the relations with another two companies working in the same area. The Civil Society Congress said the video will be submitted to the competent bodies.