Decision regarding size of pays for councillors will not take effect, Mihai Ghimpu

The chairman of the Chisinau Municipal Council (CMC) Mihai Ghimpu says that he will not sign the Council’s decision to pay 400 lei per meeting day to the councillors, Info-Prim Neo reports. He says that he read the shorthand report, listened to the recording of the meeting and ascertained that actually 24 councillors voted in favour of the decision and not 26 as required in financial maters. According to Ghimpu, the members of a faction abstained initially, but when they saw that there was a shortage of votes they gave the two votes needed. Ghimpu said that the given decision could be discussed by the CMC again. He considers that the value of the pay will be lower at the next voting. “It will range between the earlier payment of 90 lei and the recently voted one of 400 lei,” Ghimpu said. Though he abstained from voting for the remuneration of 400 lei, Mihai Ghimpu says that some of the councillors need a decent salary because they receive low wages at their permanent work. The councillors have not received salaries since they stated to work as part of the CMC. If the remuneration remains 400 lei, the working meetings will cost the municipal budget 938,000 lei for September 2007 and December 2008. From September 2007 until present, the municipal councillors held 13 meetings.