Mayor of Chisinau Dorin Chirtoaca considers that the decentralization at local level is not wanted for political reasons. In an interview for Radio Free Europe, the mayor said the decentralization means transfer of power at local level and those who have the power do not want to give it for political reasons, IPN reports.

The mayor said that any public power, any instrument and lever mean possibility of exerting influence during four years, including during the elections. According to him, they have spoken about decentralization for 20 years and only one strategy was adopted, which is still on paper. No real steps were taken for the local administration to become public power. “The mayor’s offices of Moldova are in fact service providers, but they don’t have the possibility of imposing their poisons and viewpoints as public powers,” Dorin Chirtoaca stated, adding that only when some of the mayors become members of Parliament, the situation will start to change in Moldova.

In the same interview, Head of Parliament Igor Corman said he believes that the legislative body will not manage to start the decentralization reform during the one year and a half that remained until the next ordinary legislative elections. “Unfortunately, we lost a lot of time. It should have been set as a priority in 2009,” he stated.

He also said that at least some legislative amendments that would strengthen the local public administration should be made. “We passed this law on the public finances even if the changes weren’t prefect. I heard different opinions in the country’s settlements, but the situation is improving. They need the bureaucratic barriers to be liquidated. They need to collect more money into the local budgets so as not to beg from the central authorities,” said the Speaker, adding that the government should support the mayors.