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The Parliamentary Committee for Mass-Media Called for ‘Teleradio-Moldova’ management and SB Chair Resignation

10 July 2019
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During the hearing of the SB Chair and the company’s management held on 10 July, the MPs of the Parliamentary Committee for Mass-media qualified the activity of the ‘Teleradio-Moldova’ Public Company Supervisory Board (SB) as ineffective. Also, the Committee members called for the dismissal of the ‘Teleradio-Moldova’ Chair, Olga Bordeianu, of Moldova 1 Director, Ecaterina Stratan, and of the SB Chair, Nicolae Spataru.
The MPs also recommended the Broadcasting Council (BC) to review SB activity, as a body overseeing the activity of the national media service provider. The Parliamentary Working Group on Media Monitoring together with the BC will inform the MPs on the results of these activities, by 1 September 2019.
MPs Maria Ciobanu and Octavian Ticu proposed the ‘Teleradio-Moldova’ management and the SB Chair to resign. Octavian Ticu mentioned that Moldova 1 failed to properly inform the citizens about various major events that took place recently. According to Ticu, their dismissal should lay the groundwork for changes, so that the national television would become a truly public institution.
According to the Committee members, Olga Bordeianu and Ecaterina Stratan ineffectively managed the public money, and would have turned the public station into a party television, while Olga Bordeianu would have admitted a number violations when hiring and firing employees.
The MPs were also unhappy with the way Moldova 1 covered the events of 8-9 June 2019. MP Lilian Carp said that the public TV station covered the events in the same way the media holding of Democrat MP Vladimir Plahotniuc did.
Carp highlighted that Moldova 1 presented the information too late, the citizens thus being manipulated.
In her turn, Ecaterina Stratan mentioned that the public TV station impartially and operatively presented the events taking place those days and that different monitoring could prove this.
MP Maria Ciobanu said that Olga Bordeianu and Ecaterina Stratan would have ‘laundered money’ at Moldova 1 and she would ask for an additional audit. Stratan denied this allegation too.
The SB Chair, Nicolae Spataru, was accused of not reacting promptly to the violations the management of the public company admitted.
He was also asked why the minutes of the last sessions were not made public and which was the result of the monitoring of TV shows broadcast by the public television in early June. Spataru said that the minutes were to be published later since they needed to be reviewed ones all the members looked through them. As far as TV show monitoring goes, the SB did not find any violations by the public TV station shows.
The Chair of the specialised Parliamentary Committee, Adrian Lebedinschi, objected that SB members meet too often to get more money, and they are paid per meeting.
The Parliamentary Committee’s decision is to be proposed for debates in the Parliament.