The Chisinau City Hall is going to pay the first 50 million lei from the total debt to the heat supplier “Termocom” JSC. The decision was announced on Monday, August 6, at a working meeting of the City Hall. Last week the heat supplier sued the mayoralty for a total debt of 151 million lei. Mayor General Dorin Chirtoaca termed the supplier’s actions as “overzealousness”, mentioning that he doesn’t exclude the political substance of the supplier’s decision. The mayor hopes that this situation will soon be solved, especially since the municipality assumes full responsibility for paying all the debt. Dorin Chirtoaca pointed out that the mayoralty will continue requesting that the Government also pays part of the debt, especially since the PM Vasile Tarlev has shown vagueness in his statement concerning this subject. The debt to “Termocom” will be paid via a mayoral ordinance, without the consent of the Chisinau City Council (CMC). The mayoralty officials assert that such an action doesn’t violate any rules, since the CMC decision about the covering of the tariff difference didn’t include the source of payment. Dorin Chirtoaca said that in the next few weeks, before the CMC meets again at the end of August, the mayoralty will not be able to make any financing decisions or budget reviews. The managing director of the company, Mihai Arusoi, stated that taking the City Hall into court was absolutely necessary. “Termocom” JSC is incapable of honouring its own payments to energy resource suppliers and could also be sued by them. The total debt of 151 million lei is the result of the CMC’s decision to compensate the tariff increase from 233 lei up to 540 lei. Meanwhile, the local budget could only cover 40 million lei.