Chisinau Mayor taken by surprise by number of citizens seeking audience

Some 760 citizens are scheduled for an audience with Chisinau Mayor General. Dorin Chirtoaca is overwhelmed with the large number of people seeking audience and says he will not be able to cope with it, not even in a couple of months time. Chirtoaca said at Monday’s City Hall meeting that on regular public audience days, even when he received persons until 10:00pm, he was not able to hear more than 60 citizens. At the same time, the queues at the city district offices and city departments are not that long. At the General Department for Architecture and Urbanism, where, in the mayor’s opinion, “logically most of the citizens should seek audience”, some 50 persons are heard on regular audience days and some other 50 throughout the week. The district offices receive on audience days 20-30 people, and some other tens of citizens in the course of the week. “If we keep on working the same way we will not achieve efficiency”, the mayor said. He promised to consider an efficient mechanism for solving the problems of the population, so that they don’t reach the mayor because of “administrative and legal blockages”. In the meantime, the mayor requested the City Hall staff to handle the problems of the citizens during the public hearing hours, and prohibited formal answers. “The citizen has to find a solution to his problem at the first civil servant he appealed to, in the worst case, at the level of department head, and as an exception at the chiefs of subdivisions, deputy mayors and the mayor”. The mayor receives citizens for public audience every Friday, starting at 8:00am until 5:00pm. The deputy mayors can be visited on Monday, during the same hours.