More than half of the public eating places in the municipalities of Chisinau and Balti (130 in Chisinau and 18 in Balti) do not obey the legislation that obliges them to issue receipts, IPN reports, quoting the results of a monitoring carried out by volunteers of a number of NGOs and civic activists between September 23 and November 6, 2016.

It was established that in 55% of the monitored bars, restaurants and cafés, sales slips were not issued to customers after the waiters or barmen collected the money.

In seven public eating places in Chisinau municipality, the receipt wasn’t offered even after the customers insisted on being issued with this. The explanation was that the cash register is temporary out of order or was taken for repair. Another explanation was that ‘the bill is enough’.

Also, in seven cases, it wasn’t possible to check if the paid sum corresponded with the amount indicated in the receipt because this wasn’t issued. In the other cases (97% of places), the paid amount was identical with the sum indicated in the receipt.

There was no notice warning the customers about their right to ask for sales slip, in the set form and content, in a visible place in each third monitored place (38%, 73 in Chisinau and 17 in Balti). There was also no notice about the obligation to present the receipt when examining an eventual complaint.

“It seemed strange to us that we and other persons with whom we talked were issued with one, two, three or at most ten receipts even if the monitoring was carried out mainly in the evening,” said Rodion Gavriloi, one of the members of the monitoring group.

“The major goal of the monitoring was to follow how to the public eating places implement the Antismoking Law. But we also identified other problems. We will present 130 receipts issued to customers in the monitored places to the State Main Tax Inspectorate. I’m sure that these will represent a reason for mediation for the fiscal authority and for determining the taxes that do not reach the budget,” added Ghenadie Turcanu, programs coordinator of the Center for Health Policies and Studies.

The monitoring involved volunteers of the Medical Students and Residents Association, the Center or Health Policies and Studies, the Platform for Active Citizenship and Partnership for Human Rights and civic activists of Chisinau and Balti municipalities.

The monitoring was possible through the Smoke Free Moldova project that is financed by “Campanian fos Tobacco-Free Kids” and ”Bloomberg Philanthropies” and is implemented by the Center for Health Policies and Studies.