International best practices in the application of post-employment restrictions (pantouflage), presented in workshops organized by the NAC and the UNDP

The NAC employees, as well as 50 other representatives of public authorities and private companies participated, on November 10-12, in three workshops on the application and compliance by public authorities and the private sector of post-employment restrictions (pantouflage) based on international best practices. The events were organized within the project "Curbing corruption by building sustainable integrity in the Republic of Moldova", implemented by the UNDP Moldova in partnership with the National Anticorruption Center, with the support of the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. During the workshops, with the participation of the international anti-corruption compliance expert Matthew H. Murray, some solutions for the implementation of the regime of restrictions and limitations related to the termination of the mandate, employment or service relations and the migration of public agents in private sector, valid for the legal and institutional framework in the Republic of Moldova.

According to the questionnaires used in the workshops, 9 out of 10 participants consider that additional mechanisms are needed for reporting / declaring pantouflage by public agencies and proposed several solutions that could be implemented, such as signing a commitment by each public agent, issuing a certificate to avoid pantouflage in the next institution where the person intends to be employed, including civil society monitoring. Other participants stated that "control and monitoring mechanisms should be established in each public entity with reference to tenders received after discharge / dismissal” or that "it is necessary to specify the obligations of reporting / declaring the pantouflage in relation to existing practice, namely, the establishment of a single information system on the history of employment / service relations of public officials, including to inform potential employers about certain aspects of restrictions in the field "or" the subject must be systematized in a common Regulation or a Government decision on verifying and controlling compliance with the legal regime of post-employment restrictions and limitations, as well as internal institutional regulations in this regard ”.

The participants came with several findings and suggestions for improving the mechanism of application of this integrity policy: “The general legal framework is approved. Some rules for the implementation of the general rules are to be approved. If we are talking about the imposition of sanctions, then we can examine the opportunity to establish contraventions and assign in the competence of a public authority the attribution of finding and examining these contraventions. Likewise, one can go on disciplinary sanctions applied by the employer, for example by the private one in case of finding that the new employee did not comply with the legal provisions on pantouflage "," Regulations are needed to detail the mechanism of pantouflage. At the same time, the circle of subjects should be widened.”, “Application of sanctions”. „It is necessary to revise art.24 of Law 82/2017 and to clarify several aspects as well as to elaborate the secondary legislation (Government Decision for the approval of the Regulation) regarding the implementation of the provisions of the law. The respective regulation will also stipulate the actions and responsibilities of all actors involved in the implementation and compliance with the provisions of art. 24 of Law no. 82/2017, to be clearly delimited in the legal framework who is responsible for supervising compliance with these rules; to develop a Guide for public agencies containing the mechanisms for implementing these provisions ”. Other participants stated that "each authority must establish its own mechanisms" or that "more training on the subject" may be sufficient.

Representatives of the private sector mentioned that in order to ensure compliance with the pantouflage regime in their companies "It would be necessary to develop a guide for the private sector to help companies comply with Articles 24 and 38 of the Integrity Act 2017" and fewer said it would be effective. "Checking whether employees who leave a public institution to join the company have complied with Article 24 of the Integrity Law."