The administrators of municipal minibus routes are dissatisfied with the fact that the local authorities do not want to adjust the fares, which haven’t been modified since 2006, even if the prices of fuel and spare parts increased. They said that two municipal routers have been suspended and more routes will be suspended.
Nicolae Seredneac, director of the company “Auto-Rapid” that administers ten municipal minibus routes, in a news conference at IPN said that many route administrators are on the verge of bankruptcy. Some of the administrators pledged their apartments in order to purchase new units of transport, but the revenues are not enough even to pay the interest rate on the loans.
“I admit that the minibus drivers take too many passengers on board, but otherwise we will be unable to survive. It’s impossible to transport passengers only on seats when the fare is only 3 lei,”
said Nicolae Seredneac, adding that the number of minibuses travelling on routes should be doubled during rush hour, but this is out of the question with the current fare.
The administrator of the municipal minibus routes No. 165 and 175 Veaceslav Gaina said that the fare problem is an old one. The authorities do not have a fair behavior towards the Chisinau private carriers. They offer them no support even if the carriers annually pay about 40 million lei into the state budget and another 16 million lei into the municipal budget. At the same time, the administrators of public transport yearly receive tens of millions of lei from the local budget.
“The municipality obtains incomes from the private carriers, without investing anything. Some are supported, while we are not at a time when we are in a deplorable situation. We tried by different methods to reach a compromise and presented calculations showing that the fares must be reviewed, but the local authorities consider this is not necessary,” stated Veaceslav Gaina, adding that they hope the issue will be discussed in the next meeting of the Chisinau Council.
In the same news conference, municipal councilor Iurie Topala sad the municipality has a strategy for developing the public transport, but it focuses on large vehicles. “I agree with the problems enumerated by the private carriers, but I want to say that the draft decision on the increase in fares reached the Chisinau Council only a month ago. We do not yet have a final draft decision that could be submitted to the councilors for adoption. There are only outlines,” he said, adding that the municipality has a number of conditions that the private carriers will have to fulfill if the decision to raise the fares is adopted.
The administrators of the municipal minibus routes demand that the fare should be 5 lei.
