Political and economic analyst Victor Gurau, who is the director of the Center for Strategic Analysis and Monitoring “Alternative for Moldova”, said the project to build a pay parking system in the municipality of Chisinau is the result of an agreement between the leaders of the Liberal Party (PL) and the Party of Communists (PCRM).

In a news conference at IPN on April 26, Victor Gurau, who served as a councilor in Chisinau, said the initiative was proposed by Dorin Chirtoaca in 2014, when this prepared for a third term of office, which he won in the mayoral elections of 2015. The Liberal group on the Chisinau Municipal Council didn’t have the necessary votes in support of the project and started to look for votes in other groups.

According to the analyst, the leaders of the two parties, Mihai Ghimpu and Vladimir Voronin, also discussed possibilities of supporting the project. The PCRM, which Victor Gurau represented on the Council, pressed its local councilors into supporting the initiative. The analyst said that as he refused to support the pay parking project, he wasn’t fielded for mayor general on behalf of the PCRM, as it was planned.

He noted that the tender contest to choose the company that was to implement the project was rigged and called on the National Anticorruption Center and the Prosecutor General’s Office to check what financial resources where used to finance the election campaign prior to the local mayoral elections of the PCRM and PL.

Victor Gurau also said that the Law on Local Public Administration was violated as the project hadn’t been approved by the Chisinau Municipal Council.

In July 2015, the Public Transport and Communications Division announced a tender contest to choose the contractor for building pay parking lots in Chisinau without the Council’s vote. The specification was bought by 16 companies, but only two submitted bids – non-resident EME PARKLEITSYSTEM GmbH and resident Sizif-L SRL. The last was disqualified for not presenting all the required documents. Legal action was taken and seven persons, including deputy mayor of Chisinau Nistor Grozavu, who signed the contract, were arrested on April 25. The deputy mayor is accused of abuse of power.