City Council set to review heating charge

The Chisinau Municipal Council (CMC) did not manage on Tuesday to approve a definitive decision regarding the heating charge of 540 lei, considered by the incumbent Chisinau authorities as exaggerated. The councillors considered a draft decision which suggested abrogating the decision of January 25 to increase the heating charge from 233 lei to 540 lei per G-calorie and to cover the difference from the local budget, passed by the former Communist and Christian-Democrat councillors. The draft decision will be considered while approving a final decision. A number of proposals on the situation of the heat supplier Termocom SA submitted by the councilmen will be put to the vote at the next meeting. Valentina Vazdautan, head of the General Finance Division, remarked at the meeting that following a check carried out by the Division’s specialists, it was established that the real expenses of Termocom do not correspond to the ones included in the charge of 540 lei and that the tariff should be 430 lei at the most. During a long speech justifying the size of the charge of 540 lei, the administrator of Termocom SA Dionisie Antocel said that a reduction in the charge is out of the question as this should be increased up to 700 lei, because the electric power, heating and natural gas charges went up. He said that if CMC cancels the tariff of 540 lei, the heat supplier will take legal action against it and will certainly win the case. To date, the local authorities paid over 90 mln lei to Termcoom SA to settle the debts over heat compensations. A sum of over 200 mln lei is expected to be paid by this yearend.