More than half of the households in the Republic of Moldova will receive the largest subsidy as they will fall into the highest energy vulnerability category, said Minister of Labor and Social Protection Marcel Spatari. According to him, only 20,000 families in Moldova will fall into the non-vulnerability category and will not benefit from state subsidies for energy, IPN reports.

The minister said that the first state subsidy will be provided in December for the natural gas and heat consumed in November. The citizens are urged to fill out the energy vulnerability form. Those who will not do it will be automatically added to the average vulnerability category.

“If we analyze the data of the National Bureau of Statistics, we see that more than half of the households fall into the highest energy vulnerability category. We have four vulnerability categories and a non-vulnerability category. All the four categories will receive subsidies but in a different way. The vulnerability category will be decided depending on the share of energy costs in the household’s budget. The composition of the family will also be taken into account alongside the income. The persons who will not fill out this form will be automatically added to a vulnerability category based on the statistical data,” Marcel Spatari stated in the program “In Depth” on ProTV channel.

The minister admitted that there will be citizens who will try to abuse this mechanism by introducing erroneous data in the form. However, an eventual abuse can be traced by the Social Inspectorate.

“No supplier knows the profile of the consumer. The state knows something about most of the citizens. It knows the size of pensions and salaries. The information system is connected to all the other databases of the state and checks citizens’ statements. If there is a very big difference, the system alerts us. The Social Inspectorate can be alerted by the system and this can check. Any social assistance system can estimate the social wellbeing of a household indirectly too. The households with five or more dwellings or real estate worth over 4 million lei are automatically included in the non-vulnerability category. About 20,000 households will fall into this category,” said Marcel Spatari.

He noted that through the agency of the platform compensații.gov.md, the families will be able to register for being classified into a vulnerability category. Later, the size of subsidies for each category will be set by a Government decision and the subsidy will be provided directly through bills. The platform compensatii.gov.md was designed with the assistance of the European Union and UNDP Moldova.