Accounts of Chisinau City Hall blocked again

The accounts of the Chisinau City Hall and of all the subdivisions of the Chisinau Municipal Council (CMC) have been blocked again. The payment of salaries and leave to the budget-paid employees working in the municipality is not possible. Only the electricity, heating and postal services bills can be paid, Mayor Dorin Chirtoaca said at Monday’s meeting of the City Hall, Info-Prim Neo reports. “The situation is much more serious compared with the previous blocking of the accounts. We are in the middle of a financial crisis and such court decision can paralyze activity in the city,” the mayor said. The accounts were blocked because the local public authorities did not pay damages and did not provide dwellings to several persons that won cases again Moldova at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), the head of the Legal Division Diana Gurschi said. The CMC has already dealt with two of the six court decisions. The damages in the other cases total 3 million lei. Diana Gurschi said that it is an unordinary case as the court sequestrates the accounts without saying what lost cases are meant. The local authorities were informed about the sequestration only by phone. “It is an unprecedented case of abuse. It is the state that lost the cases at the ECHR, not the Chisinau City Hall,” the mayor said, adding that the municipal budget does not include sources for providing the people with dwellings. The Chisinau City Hall sustains losses of hundreds of million lei as a result of the cases concerning provision of dwellings to certain groups of people lost by Moldova at the ECHR. The situation had worsened especially during the last two years. The last time the accounts were blocked owing to the debts to the heat supplier Termocom.