The “Good Roads” Program has nothing in common with the economic development strategies. On the contrary, it seriously affects the economic development because the withdrawal of money from the Road Fund will leave Moldova without transit roads, but it will have small roads without an economic value in each village instead. The program also represents electoral alms, programs manager of the WatchDog.md Community Valeriu Pașa stated, making reference to a case study on the issue. The subject was discussed in a public debate organized by Expert Forum, the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung and the Rule of Law Program South East Europe, IPN reports.
According to Valeriu Pașa, the “Good Roads” Program determined the withdrawal of money from the Road Fund, the building of roads in a hurry and badly and the disproportional and populist allocation of the funds in a pre-electoral year. For example, no lei was allocated in Chisinau, which is the main city in the economic infrastructure. The largest sums per capital within this project were allocated to villages and districts were the mayors are affiliated to the ruling party. No money went to the local budgets even if these roads are managed by the local authorities according to the law. Neither the repair opportunity costs nor the costs of the construction of the roads included in the program was determined
Vitalie Rapcea, ex-deputy minister of transport and road infrastructure, said an analysis showed the legislation was violated as regards the management and distribution of funds. “The law clearly provides that the local roads are the responsibility of the local public authorities and the investments in local infrastructure should be decided by the local decision-making bodies, not by the central public administration,” he stated.
Chiril Moțpan, secretary general of the Party “Platform Dignity and Truth”, said that political clientelism has always existed since the declaration of independence, but expanded during the last few years. “The new political class should take this report as an example or the country will have no future,” he stated.
The “Good Roads” Program envisions the repair or construction of 1,200 km of road sectors in over 1,000 localities of the country and will cost about 1.6 billion lei, according to the authorities. The “Good Roads II” Program to build or repair 2,600 km of roads in 2019 was launched this September. For this, about 2 billion lei will be allocated from the Road Fund, while the rest of the costs will be covered in the framework of international programs.
