The Justice Ministry (JM) again sequestered the accounts of the Chisinau local administration. In October 2008, the JM sequestered seven bank accounts of the Chisinau City Hall. Then a court unblocked the account allowing to pay the salaries of the city hall's clerks, Info-Prim Neo reports. Deputy head of the Finances Direction Valentina Vazdautan stated at the city hall's staff meeting on Monday that this time the sequestration was applied for not paying the debt of 147 million lei to heat supplier Termocom. According to her, on Monday morning, the direction asked the Finances Ministry for a loan. Legal direction head Diana Gurschi says she will sue the decision, “since the principle of local autonomy is breeched by applying the sequestration.” She said the JM's was decided later last week. “No figure presented to the court by the JM is reasoned, as the city hall paid 8 million lei from those 147 million due.” Chisinau mayor Dorin Chirtoaca says the action is political and thus “they try to paralyze the city hall's work.” “This action of the central authorities is bolder than the one from October. The ones from the central administration shall be ashamed about this big fear of theirs. The situation is going to be difficult till the elections. It's clear it's an abuse and there other interests,” Dorin Chirtoaca stated. He insisted the work of the local public administration cannot be halted, “despite impediments.” He said freezing the accounts was not justified, since the 2009 budget provides for 180 million lei to pay the debts to the heat supplier. “It will be for the first time in history when the local administration will not have debts to Termocom,” Chirtoaca said. According to the head of the Transport Direction, Veaceslav Tarna, if the situation goes on like this, the public transport can stop, as the street lights could suffer. “The situation gets very complicated, especially since the 2009 budget has not been finally passed and we don't know how much money we'll have this year,” Tarna said. The education system will also suffer because of this move. The head of the Education Direction, Tatiana Nagnibeda-Tverdohleb, said “all the schools are funded exclusively from the budget of the local administration.” The accounts frozen belong to Licurici Puppet Theater, to district offices and mayor offices of localities of the Chisinau municipality.