According to information disclosed in asset and income declarations, Dumitrița Statnic, the sister of Moldovan Parliament Vice Speaker and PAS MP Doina Gherman, has headed the Technical Department of Chișinău International Airport since May 2026, despite holding an academic background in foreign languages.
In 2021, Statnic worked for the airport concessionaire Avia Invest SRL. In December of that year, she entered public service as a senior specialist in the Regulatory Department of the Civil Aviation Authority. By January 2025, she had been promoted to deputy head of the administrative department, and about a year and a half later she was appointed head of the airport’s Technical Department. According to the latest available data, her average monthly salary is approximately 46,800 Moldovan lei.
Critics have pointed to the apparent mismatch between Statnic’s educational background in foreign languages and her current responsibilities overseeing aviation technology and infrastructure. As a result, she has been added to the growing list of close relatives of senior PAS officials who have obtained leadership positions in state institutions.
Vice Speaker Doina Gherman responded on social media, rejecting accusations of nepotism. She stressed that her sister has been employed at the airport since 2012—long before PAS was established and before Gherman herself entered Parliament. According to the MP, her sister’s career spans 14 years and includes steady promotions from agent and fee dispatcher to clerk and ultimately department head.
“I knew my turn would come. Once the machine is set in motion, it won’t stop until it has gone after everyone,” Gherman wrote.
She explained that her sister’s career advancement during PAS’s time in office was accompanied by professional training in aviation, including studies in international aviation law, as well as a master’s degree in public administration. Gherman emphasized that her sister’s salary is determined by seniority and tax contributions in accordance with the law, not by herself or by the ruling party.
“The rest of the ‘revelations,’ the insinuations about private life and the hints unsupported by a single piece of evidence—I leave them where they belong. I do notice a pattern: in recent weeks they have been attacking us one by one through our loved ones. Because someone still believes that if you attack a woman through her family, she will back down. She will not. I have been fighting this battle for ten years—for women who work, raise children, dare to enter politics, and refuse to remain silent. And if someone thought they could get to me through my sister, and through me to the party, they got the address right but the target wrong. My response is not directed at an investigative report. It is a response to a media lynching and to manipulation. All the relevant information is publicly available. No one called her. No one asked her anything. She was simply declared guilty because she is my sister,” Gherman wrote on social media.
