Chisinau mayor to propose Council to reconfirm heat tariff in force

Chisinau mayor will propose the Municipal Council (CMC) to reconfirm the present heat tariff of 540 lei/Gcal. Dorin Chirtoaca told a Thursday a news conference he made the decision since he is being forced by councilors to propose the CMC a draft charge, Info-Prim Neo reports. The mayor says he will ask for an auditing on the CET 1, CET 2 power plants and Moldovagaz to see which are the real expenditures of those companies. He vows to ask for assessing the work of Termocom heat supplier since entering the insolvency process in 2000 till now and to reconsider the loss norms established for this company. The CMC committed in a memo signed on November 12 with Termocom and Moldovagaz to decide to raising the tariff up to 740 lei/Gcal. The councilors blame Dorin Chirtoaca for not proposing them the draft and thus he allegedly hampers the CMC to honor its commitments. The natural gas supplier, Moldovagaz, has repeatedly warned it will reduce the gas deliveries to power plants since the memo's agreements have not been honored. Dorin Chirtoaca calls it “unjustified, inadmissible blackmailing in the cold period.” Earlier the mayor gave the CMC's secretary a draft providing to raise the tariff from 540 lei to 842 lei, but did signed the document he had got from Termocom. The mayor argued the tariff was unjustified and he did not support its being hiked. The draft decision has never reached the CMC's order of the day.