Mayor of Chisinau Dorin Chirtoaca defends his two inferiors, deputy mayor Nistor Grozavu and head of the Transport Division Igor Gamretski, who were arrested by anticorruption prosecutors on charges of abuse of power in the case concerning the building of paid parking lots. He made related statements in the program “Emphasis on today” on TVR Moldova channel, IPN reports.

“We have nothing against the fight against corruption and asked ourselves to cooperate with the National Anticorruption Center. But conclusive evidence should be presented every time. I understood that the criminal case was started in 2015, but nobody informed me about it during two years and a half. Now that we witnessed a natural disaster, they came to carry out searches. There are a number of questions here. There were cases that the City Hall lost. If they had informed us, these court processes could have been avoided,” stated Chirtoaca.

The mayor noted that the tender contest to choose the contractor for building the paid parking lots was held in accordance with the law. “We started from the precondition that everything was done in good faith and there were no arrangements. I discussed the project with representatives of the company, not schemes.”

Dorin Chirtoaca referred especially to Nistor Grozavu. “They arrested Grozavu amid the calamity. I fear they acted incorrectly in relation to Grozavu and his image will be damaged. I know him well and think he would never become involved in something like this,” he said.