Chisinau authorities against privatization of former kindergartens’ buildings

The authorities of the capital city will sue a number of private education establishments for accumulating rent debts. Besides recovering the overdue payments, the authorities want to avoid the privatization of the rented buildings, which were earlier nursery schools. The Chisinau Municipal Council (CMC) decided to cancel the leases with the institutions that have large debts. The councillors say that the education process in these establishments will not be interrupted because after cancellation the leases will be still valid until July 1, 2008. The owners of the private institutions will be asked to sign new leases under which the rental will be higher and the privatization will not be allowed, so as not to harm the interests of the local authorities. Alexandru Tanase, leader of the Liberal-Democratic faction in CMC, told Info-Prim Neo that the owners of private education establishment “raise millions” but pay only 50,000 lei rent a month. Tanase says that CMC will not allow the privatization of these buildings because the right to privatize is the owner’s right to sell and not an obligation. If the private institutions insist on buying the rented buildings, the councillor says that CMC will demand the organization of a transparent, open auction. According to Tanase, denationalization will be accepted only if the money coming from privatization enables CMC to build a new kindergarten in a similar zone. Experts say that according to the market prices, a square metre of space in the former nurseries costs 4,000 euros at present. The price of the afferent land, which is also high according to the market value, should be added to these costs, Tanase says. To comply with a decision by the Supreme Court of Justice, CMC last week voted to exclude the phrase “without the right to privatize” from an earlier Council decision of 2005 regarding the leasing out of buildings that were earlier kindergartens. The Court made such a decision after the Lyceum “Evrica”, the Lyceum of Foreign Languages and Management, the Lyceum “Columna”, the Chisinau branch of “Elitex” Lyceum and the International Management Institute “IMI-Nova” appealed against the decision through which they were deprived of the right to buy the buildings they rented.