Chisinau public patrimony is poorly managed, Court of Accounts

Although the income accumulated to the Chisinau Municipal Budget and to the 18 administrative-territorial units (ATU) for 2010-2011 has a positive trend, the reserves were improperly used, reports Info-Prim Neo, quoting the audit Report on ATU budgets and management of Chisinau’s public patrimony, presented on Tuesday, July 31, at a meeting of the Court of Accounts (CC). Thus, as CC department head Sergiu Stirbu noted, because of some loopholes in the estimation of taxes that were up for cashing in the respective time period, losses of 61 million occurred to the ATU budgets. Especially, some taxes for the use of patrimonial goods were improperly calculated, and for some were not calculated at all. For example, of the 1566 non-residential public property realty items, 906 have not been registered and it is unknown who owns them. “Although previous CC reports mentioned recommendations to organize public auctions for leasing or prolonging the lease of immovable assets, the price paid by businesses that use the realty does not update and they pay a per-square-meter price equal to that in the 1990’s. Only during the audit period this fact brought losses of about 17 million lei to the ATUs”, specified Stirbu. The work done in the collection of dividends from realty owned by Chisinau and ATUs is insufficient. Several cases of improper realty management were registered. Besides these great violations on residential blocks that sprung like mushrooms, it was mentioned that in Chisinau as well as in its suburbs there are booths, kiosks, parking lots, annexes, in the case of which it cannot be proven who authorized them and who is the owner. “These deficiencies, along with others, denote irresponsible management”, added Stirbu. Also, the audit found 810 unfinished construction projects within Chisinau and ATUs (cost is estimated at 500 million lei), as well as the lack of a plan of use for them, and as a whole the lack of a strategy of capital investment.