With a deficit of over 279 million lei, the draft budget of Chisinau municipality for 2018 was presented for public debates on November 28. The municipality plans to collect 3.621bn lei revenues next year. The expenditure was projected at 3.901 billion lei, IPN quoted the Finance Division’s head Zinaida Jaloba as saying.

The largest costs are planned for education – about 1.8bn lei, social sphere – 320m lei, youth and sport – about 158 million lei. The revenues will be obtained from leasing out commercial areas and non-agricultural land, from taxes and tariffs, etc.

Socialist councilor Eugenia Ceban asked that the budget should include financial resources for persons with hearing impairments and locomotor disabilities. She suggested that 3m lei should be allocated for purchasing sonorous traffic lights and 2m lei for installing special elevators intended for persons with reduced mobility at medical institutions in Chisinau.

Eugenia Ceban criticized the expenditure estimate of the Health Division, which asked 38m lei for repairing health facilities, noting that the Division earlier also executed repair works even if this is not within its competence and no one followed how the public money was spent.

Economic expert Sergiu Ungureanu welcomed the municipality’s readiness to ensure transparency in the use of public money, noting the legal procedures should also be respected. He said the invitation to the public discussions was made one day before these, but this should have been done at least 15 days earlier so that all those interested could come to the debates.

Acting mayor of Chisinau Silvia Radu said the municipality will take all the recommendations into account and such situations will be excluded in the future.