The Government on Thursday, February 10, will propose a package of solutions to carriers in response to their demand to raise the tariffs following the increase in the prices of fuels, primarily diesel fuel, said Mircea Păscăluță, secretary of state in charge of transport at the Ministry of Infrastructure and Regional Development. Among the proposals, the functionary mentioned the introduction of a differentiated tariff, depending on the vehicle occupancy rate, IPN reports.
In an interview for RFE/RL’s Moldovan Service, Mircea Păscăluță said the authorities, as solutions, will propose projects to assist the carriers to renovate the motor vehicles, tax exemptions applied in parallel with very strict taxing, digitization of services in public transport and urgent optimization of transport services.
“In principle, I don’t think there is a kind of dispute. It goes to the position of the carriers and to the position of the Ministry. We every time communicated with them. The Government is new, but the problems didn’t appear now and are older. The carriers invoked the higher prices of fuels, primarily of diesel fuel. We realize this. We had discussions and every time accepted their requests. I think we had five meetings with carriers since I took up my duties at the Ministry and there is a package of measures that the Ministry undertook to implement in the immediate period,” stated Mircea Păscăluță.
He noted that besides the fuel prices, there is also the vehicle occupancy rate that cannot be strictly monitored. But the tariff will depend on this rate. The pandemic restrictions influenced somehow the occupancy rate, but authorities’ analyses show there is a big difference between the occupancy rate at inter-district level, which is the routes that ensure connection with Chisinau, and the one at district level. The situation at inter-district level is not so serious and the occupancy rate is acceptable. At the district level, it is different and the local public authorities that know the realities in regions better will consider the application of differentiated tariffs.
“Some of the carriers refuse to provide district routers, from a village to the district center, because there are few travellers there and it is not profitable for them. We cannot intervene and force them. We come up with solutions for the carriers and for the citizens. The solution concerning the tariff is a temporary one as the problem should be examined comprehensively and we started particular processes that are expected to produce the wanted result,” stated the functionary.
