Between Illusory Justice, Political Tactics and Attacks on Central Bank Independence: An Opinion on the Initiative to Redistribute Part of the National Bank of Moldova's Profits to Partly Cover the “Theft of the Billion”

The author argues that the initiative contradicts central bank independence principles and undermines the bank's capitalisation, which remains insufficient: statutory capital was just under 4%, about 2.5 times below the legal 10% minimum. It also cannot deliver the announced MDL 6 billion, since the bank's profit in 2018 was only MDL 249.13 million. In his view, it masks the lack of real progress in investigating the “theft of the billion”: no fraudulently taken money has been recovered, and citizens still pay the bill.

He concludes that the move amounts to putting money from one pocket into another. Instead, he reiterates Expert-Grup's 2016 mechanism: all proceeds from asset sales, collateral enforcement and recovered funds should go exclusively to early repayment of the debt to the central bank, with maximum transparency and regular public reporting on investigations.