The mayor of Chisinau Ion Ceban said the bills of all the social facilities in Chisinau were collected and sent to the Government. He noted the central authorities should cover these costs as the municipality is not obliged to pay for the central administration’s incapacity to negotiate an advantageous contract with Gazprom. The mayor stated he will continue his political activities and will develop the National Alternative Movement, but this will not affect his professional deities at the City Hall, IPN reports.
Ion Ceban is considering the possibility of transforming the National Alternative Movement into a political party, but this will happen only if the citizens support him. The process will be transparent and the party will be registered when there is will on the part of the people.
“When I designed the National Alternative Movement, I wanted it to be completely different. It will be an entity we will create from down to up. We ask the residents of Chisinau how they assess the mayor’s work and I don’t think there are objections as regards political involvement. I didn’t dismiss anyone according to political criteria. For now, we speak not about a party, but about a movement. We will decide together with the people weather to transform this movement into a political party or not. For us, the first part of this process was important. We made the announcement first as we wanted to see what the people think about such a project,” Ion Ceban stated in the program “Friday with Anatolie Golea” on RTR Moldova channel. He noted they will create a website of the movement so as to consult the people in all the areas through this.
The mayor assured that the city management activities will not be affected by his political activities. “We planned a number of projects and, despite the central authorities’ attitude, we will complete them. In Chisinau, the payments for gas bills owing to the foolishness and incompetence of the central administration amount to 334 million lei and this sum is to be paid from the 2022 budget. We sent all the papers and calculations to the Government as we consider the Government should cover these costs. 325 million lei is equal to 120 new buses in Chisinau, which we cannot buy because we have to pay the bills of schools, kindergartens, hospitals. We pay for the foolishness of the central authorities,” he said.
Ion Ceban announced the launch of the National Alternative Movement on December 30, 2021. According to the last opinion poll carried out by CBS-Research by order of the Institute for Development and Social Initiatives “Viitorul” and the Institute of Political Science and International Relations “Ion I.C Brătianu” of Romania, the National Alternative Movement would be supported by 1.3% of those polled.
