City Hall workers resign to avoid being fired

[Info-Prim Neo article from the series “2011: how it was and how it wasn't”] {Chisinau with its achievements, failures and perspectives – resignations and firings } In 2011, the Chisinau City Hall was left without several heads of divisions. The trend continued from 2010, when the most sackings were recorded. Nicolae Monastarli, Veaceslav Tarna and Vlad Modarca lost their jobs in a month’s time. The head of the Juridical Assistance Division Diana Gurschi told Info-Prim Neo that all three of the abovementioned wrote resignation requests citing personal reasons. It’s possible they resigned to avoid being fired. When an employee is sacked, the reasons for his sacking are stipulated in his file, which could make finding a new job pretty difficult. According to Diana Gurschi, several irregularities within the local public administration were discovered thanks to the creation of the Internal Audit Direction, which had the function and tools to check the financial activity of municipal divisions and enterprises. Compared to 2008-2009, there have been more firings in 2010-2011. Mayor Dorin Chirtoaca told Info-Prim Neo that there was a reason for each sacking. He doesn’t rule out future firings, but there won’t be any discrimination by age or political affiliation. “Political colors are not a criterion. I’ve fired party colleagues from the Economy, Capital Constructions or Communal Housing divisions”, stressed the mayor. He doesn’t consider age a good reason to fire someone and brought the example of some heads of municipal enterprises that still work despite their age. “The folks from Lumteh, headed by Nicolae Veresco, are doing a great job despite the crisis, reducing expenses, installing more street lights and even did a good job with the decoration lights through the whole city. Mrs. Caraus did well at the Finance Division, but was promoted to Deputy Minister of Finances and was replaced by Mrs. Herta. The latter, young as she is, managed to assert herself in a year and to prepare the budget for 2011, which was appreciated even by the opposition at that time”, he said. The official doesn’t think that the personnel must be changed in order to obtain some improvements. “I told them initially and reiterated it after being re-elected: all that matters is how they do their job. If they are up to the task, it doesn’t matter if they have worked two or ten years in the City Hall. If they are not good enough, then we part ways and it’s the same for new employees”, Chirtoaca said. The mayor admitted nonetheless that new people usually bring improvements. “There are cases when new people showed skill and achieved great results. There are also cases when people already in office improved by time and obtained better results”, said the mayor. Infringements committed when repairing the Alba Iulia Street were the reason for the sacking of the head of the Architecture Division Veaceslav Tarna. It was proven that the asphalt was of a quality inferior to the stipulated one. The former chief-architect Vlad Modarca was discharged for several reasons, including the retirement age. The same reason was cited for firing Nicolae Monastarli. [Elena Nistor, Info-Prim Neo]