The food safety ensuring powers of a number of institutions overlap and there are no clear mechanisms concerning the issuing of authorizations and licenses or destruction of dangerous products. Cases of passive corruption and negligence when carrying out inspections were identified inside the National Food Safety Agency, experts of the National Anticorruption Center ascertained when analyzing risks at such institutions as the National Food Safety Agency and Consumer Protection Agency. The information was presented in a press club meeting staged by the Journalistic Investigations Center on June 28, IPN reports.
Romina Cibotaru, the representative of the National Anticorruption Center who assessed the corruption risks at the National Food Safety Agency, said they established that the powers concerning food safety are doubled at this Agency, at the Consumer Protection Agency and at public health centers because they don’t know where to go to when they face problems.
Shortcomings were also discovered in setting the tariffs of authorizing documents. For example, one of the documents was issued free by an entity at a time when the legislation stipulated a state tax. As a result, damage of up to 250,000 lei was caused to the state budget.
Romina Cibotaru also said that there are no transparent procedures for withdrawing a product from the market. It is impossible to withdraw a product when this reaches the end-user. The mechanism for destroying unsafe products is also unclear. These risks make entities’ actions aimed at ensuring food safety practically inefficient.
The identified internal risks included passive corruption, use of resources outside the working ours, such as company cars during leave, favoring of business entities and non-observance of the inspection procedures.
The National Anticorruption Center experts recommended reviewing the legislation so as not to double the powers of a number of entities, really implementing the one-stop shop for issuing authorizing documents and ensuring transparency by improving the quality of the website of the National Food Safety Agency.
