Some Members of the Supervisory Board of Teleradio-Moldova Accused The President and the Secretary of the Institution of Violating the Labour Law

According to the minutes, the SB members had a meeting on 19 November, to discuss the information appeared in the media, which stated that the Board President Nicolae Spataru and secretary Tatiana Munteanu, who fulfill an extra job at Teleradio-Moldova, supposedly, have full-time jobs outside the company, thus violating the labour law. The meeting was organised at the request of the SB member Violeta Cojocaru.

Nicolae Spataru explained to the SB members that, indeed, besides doing a second job at Teleradio-Moldova, he also works in the Writers’ Union (WU), where he serves as the director of projects and programs Department – but WU is not a state budget institution. In her turn, the SB secretary Tatiana Munteanu said that she did her main job at the Technical University, as a university lecturer, and the legislation allowed her to do so.

Accusations of holding office illegally

SB member Larisa Calugaru is the one who provided the information to the media. She also presented a response from the National Integrity Authority (NIA) to her request on the problem of simultaneous employment of the SB president and secretary. According to the NIA response, subjects, stipulated in the Article 3 of the Law on declaration of the wealth and personal interests, including the members of Teleradio-Moldova Council of Observers (the Supervisory Board – A/N), ‘are in a state of incompatibility if, besides a public function or a public dignity position, he/she simultaneously holds/fulfills another function/position, quality or activity, which is prohibited’.

The letter of NIA also describes the conditions of incompatibility of the position of a SB member. If incompatibility is found, the SB member has 30 days to give up this position.

Thus, according to the law, the position of SB member is incompatible with: the status of MP, of member of Government, of local servant, of member of the central or local public administration, or status of their employee, of member of the Broadcasting Council; the capacity of direct or indirect holder of shares or parts of authorised capital of commercial companies working in the areas, which would pose a conflict of interest with the membership in the Supervisory Board; the  status of employee of the national media service provider, with the exceptions provided in Article 47(1); the status of an author, presenter, moderator, producer (in-service or free-lance) of the national media service provider’s audiovisual programs; member of a party or a political affiliate.

At the same time, according to the NIA answer, signed by the President of the Authority, Rodica Antoci, the data presented to Larisa Calugaru is for informational and consultational purposes and that NIA can ascertain the violation or lack of incompatibilities of a person required to submit declarations of personal property only after a specialised control, carried out by the integrity inspector.

Larisa Calugaru explained Media-azi.md that she had more claims to the Nicolae Spataru’s activity. One of them is that he was paid for the period 1 January – 4 March 2019, the day the contract with Teleradio-Moldova administration was signed. In this context, the SB member Cojocaru noticed that Spataru’s working time evidence sheets were approved with his own signature.

At the same time, Calugaru believes that Spataru illegally holds the position of SB president, because there is no Board’s decision on electing the president by SB members, in compliance with the new Code, which entered into force on 1 January 2019. In turn, Violeta Cojocaru proposed to include issue of electing the Board’s president on the next SB meeting’s agenda, because so far elections were not held according to the provisions of the new law.
She also claims that Nicolae Spataru also violated the workplace discipline, because he did not show up for work on some days.

How the SB president and secretary comment these accusations

Contacted by Media-azi, Nicolae Spataru replied that ‘people do not get in the essence of response received from NIA’. He explained that neither he nor the SB secretary hold public dignity positions. ‘We submit the declaration of property, but we do not hold such positions’, Spataru explained.

Tatiana Munteanu also argues that, according to the Law on the status of persons holding public dignity positions, positions of the SB secretary and president are not in the list of public dignity positions. Therefore, there are no legal provisions which would prohibit them from holding other positions outside the ‘Teleradio-Moldova’ Company. The fact that she fulfills the second job at the TRM would not be an infringement of the law.
 
As regards the accusation that he was paid for the period of 1 January – 4 March, the SB president claims that he fulfilled his obligations during this time and was paid for this.

Nicolae Spataru added that he was appointed on 2 November 2016, and the Supervisory Board is the successor to the Observers Council. Moreover, he also called attention to a briefing note from the Parliamentary Committee for Mass Media, stating that the decision on continuity of the position of Board’s president is left up to the SB members, who can adopt the decision to resign the president by 2/3 votes.

What the State Labour Inspectorate says

The SB president also told us that he submitted a request to the State Labour Inspectorate, in which he requested to interpret the law, with respect to the SB president and secretary’s possibility to hold an extra job, in case they are employed full-time in other institutions. According to the State Labour Inspectorate, Spataru’s job as the director of a Department at the Writers’ Union and as the president of SB TRM – as the second (extra) job ‘does not contradict the law in force’. According to the letter signed by Dumitru Stavila, the head of the State Labour Inspectorate (SLI), the law stipulates that ‘fulfillment of extra job (second job) means fulfillment by an employee, besides the main job, of an extra job, permanent or temporary, over the main working hours, on the basis of a distinct individual labour contract’.

Stavila also refers to the Audiovisual Media Services Code, which stipulates that the budget of ‘Teleradio-Moldova’ is formed by subsidies from the state budget and own revenues. That is why TRM employees do not fall under the law on the unified wage system in the budget sector, which applies to persons holding public dignity positions, civil servants and other persons working in institutions entirely funded from the state or local budgets.

 
The President of SB believes that SB member Larisa Calugaru is upset by him because she was not elected the SB secretary. Spataru refers to the meeting of 12 February 2019, when Larisa Calugaru applied for this position, but did not receive the required number of votes. He believes that another cause of complaints in the SB is the remuneration – while the president and the secretary are the Board’s employees, ordinary members are paid per meeting.
 
According to the new Audiovisual Media Services Code, the president and the secretary of the Supervisory Board are considered employees of ‘Teleradio-Moldova’ with normal work regime, and monthly salary of the president of the Supervisory Board is equal to 90% of monthly salary of the Broadcasting Council Chair. The monthly salary of the Supervisory Board secretary amounts to 90% of the monthly salary of the Supervisory Board President. Other SB members receive a monthly allowance of 10% of the monthly salary of the Supervisory Board President for participation in each meeting and, when appropriate, are reimbursed the transportation and accommodation costs.

Before the new Code had entered into force, Council of Observers’ members were awarded MDL 1,400 per meeting.