Chisinau’s mayor is accused of dictatorship

The chief of the Chisinau Social Assistance General Direction, Eugenia Ceban, dismissed repeatedly from her function by Chisinau’s mayor, Dorin Chirtoaca, has accused him of dictatorship, chaos and disorder in the city. On Monday, November 3, Eugenia Ceban came to the city hall, accompanied by more pensioners, and demanded the mayor’s dismissal, Info-Prim Neo reports. She has told journalists that she does not renounce to her working place, because the mayor is not competent to dismiss her, and this is the Chisinau Council’s and the court’s prerogative. “Three writes have been pronounced stating his lack of right to dismiss me. He dares to repress very qualified staff and to set up dictatorship in the City Hall as well as in Chisinau. There has been disorder and total chaos in Chisinau, since his being appointed as a mayor. We can’t work in silence with citizens,” Eugenia Ceban has accused. She also added that the reason she was dismissed – financial mismanagement – is false. When asked to comment on her accusations, Dorin Chirtoaca stated that “the civil servant’s dismissal was made strictly according to the law in force”. “Previously this thing was the CMC’s competence, but according to the valid law regarding the local public administration, this is the mayor’s competence, regardless of the person who hired the subdivision’s chief,” the mayor has explained. The mayor said that Eugenia Ceban has been dismissed by virtue of many financial encroachments in salary calculation, as well as other “abuses made in the direction, the way the social service is organized”. As to the Court’s decision to restore Eugenia Ceban in her function, Dorin Chirtoaca said that “we have trials which, in one way or another, decide delicate problems, dealing with politics as well”. “I take the risk to continue the disputes with the Court, in the conditions in which the independence of Moldova’s law is not respected. All the ordinances issued by me in this sense have been sued, but not those issued by interim mayor Veaceslav Iordan . We understand that the Moldovan Government and the judiciary see only the situation after the elections, not that before them,” the mayor stated. The conflict between the chief of the Social Assistance General Direction and the Chisinau’s mayor has lasted for more than a year. Eugenia Ceban has been repeatedly dismissed, but she has not complied with the mayor's decision.