Valeriu Balaban is acquitted in the case of purchasing a building for the General Prosecutor’s Office
The former prosecutor general was acquitted in a case in which he was accused of exceeding his official authority in a deal to buy a building for the prosecutor’s office at an inflated price and awarding a renovation contract in violation of the law.
The verdict was handed down on Monday, May 27, by Judge Lilia Lupasco from the Chisinau Court of the Buiucani sector, zdg.md reports.
“The act does not correspond to the elements of the crime,” the judge concluded.
The prosecutor’s office building was purchased for 9 million lei, with a real price of 2.5 million lei
In 2017, the General Prosecutor’s Office reported that former Prosecutor General Valeriu Balaban ordered the purchase of an unfinished building at Alexandru cel Bun Street, 100, in 2005 at a price of 9 million lei, although the real price, according to the latest estimate, was just over 2.5 million lei .
The Prosecutor General’s Office claims that the deal took place in the absence of a public tender and in the absence of properly verified and approved project documentation. In addition, the department stated that after the purchase, in the absence of an approved reconstruction project and assessment of the work, members of the tender group created by order of Balaban appointed an economic agent as the general contractor for the reconstruction. Balaban then signed a contract with the contractor, ignoring legal regulations, so that in total more than 18.8 million lei were paid from the state budget, and the building is still not completed.
“Moreover, the economic agent involved the Prosecutor General’s Office in a civil process, demanding to recover more than 6 million lei from the institution’s account for allegedly completed but unpaid work. In fact, the circumstances surrounding the civil dispute served as the basis for the initiation of an investigation and criminal prosecution,” prosecutors say.
Court of Accounts on violations identified from 2007 to 2010: “28.3 million lei were allocated for the acquisition and renovation of an unfinished building”
The Accounts Chamber of Moldova spoke about violations back in 2010. Thus, in the report on the 2009 audit and the use of public funds in 2007-2008 in the Prosecutor General’s Office, auditors found that in 2005-2009, 28.3 million lei were allocated from the state budget from the capital investment account for the acquisition and reconstruction of an unfinished building at Alexandru cel Bun street, 100.
Then the Accounts Chamber found that the Prosecutor General’s Office, in violation of the provisions of the Law on Quality in Construction, “did not ensure the implementation of investments in the reconstruction of an unfinished building by complying with requirements for the quality of construction and that the process of procurement, examination and design, identifying a contractor to carry out work on the reconstruction of an unfinished building , acquired for the Prosecutor General’s Office, was carried out with errors and difficulties, which negatively affected the use of budget funds.”
The Accounts Chamber also found that the reconstruction contract work was carried out in violation of the law, in the absence of design documentation accompanied by approved and properly assessed estimates. In addition, the auditors came to the conclusion that “work on the reconstruction, demolition and strengthening of the building was also started not according to the rules, in the absence of estimate and design documentation, accompanied by calculations approved and examined in the prescribed manner, in violation of the legislative framework governing state procurement.” The Accounts Chamber’s report also notes that the institution first issued an opinion on this issue back in 2007.
