Troubled Partnerships: Analysis of the Draft Law Amending the PPP Legislation
Automatically translated summary. The full text is available in Romanian.
On 27 April 2023 the Parliament of the Republic of Moldova approved in first reading draft law no. 102 of 13 April 2023 on public-private partnerships and public property management. An analytical note by Expert-Grup argues that the Government's bill fails to resolve the main problems of PPPs and should be corrected before final adoption.
Improving the PPP framework is one of the nine de-oligarchisation conditions set by the EU (commitment no. 4.10), due by the end of June 2023. Approval would formally tick that box, but the draft keeps PPPs an instrument to be avoided rather than promoted. Some provisions contradict the stated objectives and the state property strategy, unbalance the contract and risk the embezzlement of public assets.
The framework remains fragmented, spread across Law 179/2008, Law 121/2018 and, tangentially, Law 182/2010. Audits by the Court of Accounts and a parliamentary inquiry exposed gaps behind the Air Moldova, Modern Bus Stations and Chișinău International Airport cases: weak feasibility studies, incomplete contracts, replacement of the private partner with one that would not have qualified, and insurance policies instead of bank performance guarantees. States without PPP experience should start with small projects.
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