Mayor of Chisinau Dorin Chirtoaca said he backs the new system for financing mayor’s offices. In an interview for Euro TV channel, he said the Chisinau City Hall and the Liberal Party, where he is deputy chairman, are in favor of the amendments to the Law on Local Public Finances as they offer more financial autonomy to the Moldovan settlements.
The authors said the amendments establish direct budgetary relations between the central authorities and the mayor’s offices and provide equitable general transfer formulas calculated according to the number of people, the fiscal capacity and the settlements’ area, and fixed special allocations for national competences such as education and social benefits.
According to Dorin Chirtoaca, he earlier opposed the adoption of the amendment bill as it contained provisions that infringed the interests of the municipality. He changed his mind after the head of the City Hall’s Finance Division Veronica Herta and representatives of the Ministry of Finance reached a consensus over the term of the new system of interbudgetary relations.
On June 21, Dorin Chirtoaca said the amendments to the Law on Local Public Finances are aimed against Chisinau and he will appeal them to the Constitutional Court after they are adopted in the final reading.
At the same time, the mayor said that according to his information, the Liberal-Democratic MPs will not vote the bill in the third reading as they feared they will lose the political influence they had on the local public authorities through the Ministry of Finance. Representatives of the Liberal-Democratic Party haven’t commented on the mayor’s assertions.
On the other hand, the mayor welcomed the efforts of the Congress of Local Authorities of Moldova, which brings together almost 500 mayors, to promote the amendments to the Law on Local Public Finances. The Chisinau City Hall will join the Congress in its efforts to convince Parliament to adopt the amendments so that they take effect next year already.
The bill with amendments to the Law on Local Public Finances was passed in Parliament in two readings on July 13. It is to be examined in the third reading in the legislature’s autumn session that starts on September 26.
