Chisinau City Council is brought to court

Heat supplier “Termocom” JSC has sued on Friday, August 3, the Chisinau City Council for a 151 mln lei debt. In an official announcement, the supplier stated that the local authorities disrespected the established deadline and didn’t pay the promised money. “Termocom” has put forward two request documents to the Council, without receiving any answer. The last reclamation was submitted on July 25, 2007, in which the heat supplier demanded that the payment be made within 10 days. The local authorities were informed that they will be brought to court if they don’t settle the debt to “Termocom” JSC. “Because of the debt from the local public administration, “Termocom” JSC is not able to respect its own obligations towards the providers of energy resources,” states the official announcement of the supplier. Chisinau Mayor Dorin Chirtoaca has stated recently that he wishes to solve the problem of the debt in a friendly way with “Termocom” JSC. According to the mayor, in order to solve the problem it is necessary to take into consideration also the debts of “Termocom” JSC, as well as the debts of CET-2 to the municipal enterprise “Apa-Canal Chisinau”. Chirtoaca mentioned that the City Hall will insist that the central authorities pay part of the expenses for the compensation of the tariff for heat, as the communist faction working in the former Chisinau Municipal Council took upon itself such a political decision. The 151 mln debt generates from the fact that the City Council promised at the beginning of the year that once the charges for heat are increased to MDL 540, the local administration would pay MDL 307.82, the difference between the new tariff and the tariff paid by the consumers – MDL 233. Meanwhile, MDL 40 mln was transferred from the local budget out of the total debt of MDL 190. Mayor Dorin Chirtoaca has recently stated that the Finance Department will pay MDL 50 mln from the local budget to partially cover the debt of “Termocom” and asked the Government to pay part of the debt. The Government gave no answer on this issue so far.