In July 2022, the Independent Anti-Corruption Advisory Committee (CCIA) presented a report that provided a first comprehensive analysis of corruption in the financial, banking and insurance systems in Moldova. The CCIA was established in June 2021 by Presidential Decree as a joint independent international and national body. Its main purpose is to analyse systemic corruption issues that cut across Moldovan institutions and improve implementation of anti-corruption measures by the relevant parties. The CCIA’s activities are financially supported by the European Union and the U.S Department of State Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. Further reports on the failures to tackle corruption in the country will follow.

The report of July 2022 assessed the contributing factors and institutional responses that led to large-scale corruption, fraud, and money laundering in the post-Soviet era of Moldova. It was found that legal amendments, questionable appointments of heads of institutions, lack of genuine independence of oversights institutions and the absence of stronger actions in respect of red flags brought the country to the brink of “captured state”.

The report includes over 40 recommendations, such as:

• Strengthening institutional capacity;
• Increasing transparency of institutions;
• Changing legislation;
• Improving oversight mechanisms in the financial, banking, and insurance sectors;
• Ensuring transparent procedures and clear criteria for appointment of governor and deputy governors at the National Bank of Moldova and other state institutions;
• Strengthening early detection of money laundering in relevant institutions;
• Improving civil and criminal recovery by streamlining coordination between agencies;
• Solidifying the international support.

Moldovan institutions and authorities are expected to implement these recommendations in close cooperation with the CCIA and its partners.

Ultimately, the CCIA experts stressed that the war in Ukraine has a particular impact on the situation in Moldova. It creates enormous opportunities for domestic and transnational individual oligarchs and kleptocrats, their networks and, where extant, their state sponsors, to profit enormously from instability, wartime disruption and distraction. Therefore, Moldova must be vigilant in its struggle to avoid even more pernicious corruption during these extraordinarily dangerous times.