Mayor of Chisinau Dorin Chirtoaca said that the reconstruction of the building of the Parliament had been planned in 2006, when a draft project for the renovation, especially of the assembly hall, was submitted to the City Hall. Under the draft project, the assembly hall was to be enlarged by adding 2 annexes and one more story, the mayor told a news conference on May 21, Info-Prim Neo reports. According to the mayor, the works carried out at the Parliament now are based on the same project. “There is a foundation and annexes that are being built. The part where there is the canteen and the assembly hall is practically rebuilt,” Dorin Chirtoaca said. According to the mayor, the accusations made by the PCRM against the Opposition and Romania are ‘very strange’ given that the reconstruction of the legislative body’s building has been planned for three years. “After obtaining the urbanism certificate for designing the building, they applied for a construction authorization several days later. Consequently, the reconstruction project was already ready. He also said that the project approved in 2006 by the then chief architect of the city Nicon Zaporojan was found in the achieve of the City Hall while examining the application for an authorization to reconstruct the Parliament’s building filed by the central authorities. The cost of the works is indicated in the application – over 250 million lei. I did not issue such an authorization as I discovered a series of irregularities, including the exaggerated costs of the works and the fact that the reconstruction was not planned after the April 7 events, but in 2006, Dorin Chirtoaca added. “If the City Hall issues the authorization, it will confirm the exaggerated costs of the works. This is actually misappropriation of funds,” the mayor said. He also said that according to the calculations made by officials of the City Hall, the construction of a new building like the Parliament’s building (11,000 square meters) costs 40 million lei – 6 times less than the sum indicated for the reconstruction. He also said that the costs of repairing the Presidential Office are also unjustified as they are two times higher than those for the Parliament. But the building of the Presidential Office was not damaged to the same extent. Asked by Info-Prim Neo to comment on the mayor’s statements, the first deputy speaker of Parliament, Communist MP Vladimir Turcan confirmed the existence of such a project, but said that though the Parliament’s building was to be repaired because is it more than 30 years old, the project was not implemented in 2006 and will not be implemented now owing to the lack of money and the financial crisis. “It is absurd to make a connection between that project and the April events and to try to justify the acts of vandalism committed including by Mayor Dorin Chirtoaca,” he said. Asked about the costs of the works, Turcan advised Chirtoaca to take part in the meetings of the state commission for investigating the causes of the April 7 events so as to see that the calculations are right. The central authorities have initially announced that the works to reconstruct the two buildings will cost 300 million lei. Later, Moldova’s outgoing president Vladimir Voronin said that abut 700 million lei will be spent from the state budget for the purpose.