CHISINAU (Reuters) - Moldovan Prime Minister Chiril Gaburici said on Friday he was tendering his resignation, days after he called for the state prosecutor and central bank chief to step down over the disappearance of $1 billion from three Moldovan banks.
Gaburici, a 38-year-old pro-European businessman, took over in February as prime minister of the small ex-Soviet country between Ukraine and European Union, heading a minority coalition government supported by two pro-European parties.
"I am not a politician, I am a manager. The country needs to change the political system," he told reporters in a briefing.
Moldova has been in a state of political tumult since it emerged in recent months that the equivalent of around an eighth of annual GDP had gone missing from the three banks.
Gaburici called last weekend for a number of senior officials, including the heads of the prosecutor's office and the central bank, to resign for failing to catch the embezzlers.
After he castigated officials, prosecutors hit back, announcing a criminal investigation into whether Gaburici had forged his school records earlier in his public career.
The country, one Europe's poorest, has been divided since the fall of the Soviet Union between factions that are broadly pro-European and pro-Russian, with both sides accusing each other of corruption during their periods in power.
Last year it ratified a political and trade agreement with the European Union, incurring the displeasure of Russia which has banned imports of wines, vegetables and meat from the mainly agricultural country.
Its fate has gained new international attention since Russia seized neighboring Ukraine's Crimea peninsula last year. Russian troops are stationed in a strip of Moldova since the breakup of the Soviet Union, protecting a self-proclaimed independent statelet called Transdniestria which is loyal to Moscow.