Chisinau City Hall could face debt of 1.3bn lei

The Chisinau City Hall may have to settle a debt of 1.3 billion lei as the court decided to transfer the heat supplier SA Termocom under its administration on November 3. The copy of the given decision was passed on by World Bank representatives to the mayor of Chisinau. The announcement was made by Dorin Chirtoaca at Monday's meeting of the municipal services and divisions, Info-Prim Neo reports. The mayor said no person from the City Hall was invited to that trial. “The court decided that SA Termocom will be again administered by the City Hall and now we face a debt of 1.3 billion lei that accumulated because the heating charges had not been adjusted on time,” the mayor said. According to him, he found out about the court's decision while at a meeting with representatives of the World Bank. Officials of the City Hall are yet to find out details about that trial. “We had been forced to pay debts of 700 million lei. We did not repay them yet. Instead of investing this money we have to subsidize Termocom due to the incorrect decisions made,” the mayor said. The commercial director of SA Termocom Mihai Arusoi did not confirm that the City Hall will again manage the company. He said Termocom sustains losses of 2 million lei a day because the heating charge is 540 lei per gigacalorie, while the thermoelectric plant CET-1 supplies heat at the price of 510 lei per gigacalorie, while CET-2 – of 412 lei. In this connection, Dorin Chirtoaca said that CET-1 and CET-2 did not reduce the tariffs after Moldova-Gaz cheapened the natural gas by 10%. “Together with the national energy regulator ANRE and foreign experts we will inspect CET-1, CET-2 and Moldova-Gaz to determine the real costs incurred by them so that the people know what they pay money for,” the mayor said.