Government does not answer local authorities’ invitation to discuss situation related to heat supply

The Government did not answer the local authorities’ invitation to discuss the situation created in the thermo-energy system in Chisinau. At Thursday’s meeting of the Chisinau Municipal Council (CMC), the leader of the Social-Democratic faction Eduard Musuc said that he has not yet received an answer from the Government to the appeal he made to Prime Minister Vasile Tarlev on behalf of the CMC a week ago. In the officially registered appeal, the CMC asks the Premier to find a possibility and organise a meeting of representatives of the CMC, City Hall, Government, Termocom SA, CET 1, CET 2 and Moldova Gaz SA as soon as possible in order to solve the problem. The Government’s attitude shows that the central authorities do not want to settle the given problem that can be solved by the CMC, City Hall and Government of Moldova only by common consent, the councillor said. The non-affiliated council Mihai Severovan expressed his bewilderment at the fact that Eduard Musuc was delegated to open negotiations with the Government. In his opinion, the CMC chairman Mihai Ghimpu, who has telephone connection with the Government, can call and arrange a meeting without losing time on what he called “political shows”, Mihai Severovan said. In response, the CMC chairman said that Eduard Musuc was entrusted only with the task to organise the meeting, not to carry out talks. Mihai Ghimpu added that as the Government did not give an answer yet, he can also ask Mihai Severovan, who is an experienced man and former minister, to conduct negotiations and fix the meeting. At the same meeting, the faction of the Communist Party demanded that the administration of the City Hall resign over “the crisis in the capital’s energy system”. The declaration read by the faction’s leader Svetlana Popa says that the crisis shows the majority coalition’s incapacity to cope with the problems of the capital city and the Communist councillors cannot take part in the voting on the municipal budget for 2008 proposed by the coalition. Svetlana Popa said that by cancelling the payment of compensations for heat from the municipal budget they caused a catastrophe. For the first time in the post-war period, Chisinau is on the verge of a humanitarian crisis at a time when the budget is full of unused resources, the cited source said. Oleg Cernei, councillor on behalf of the Moldova Noastra Alliance, replied that the energy system reached such a state as a result of the activity of the PCRM and PPCD factions from the previous Council. These factions voted to increase the heating charge on January 25, promising that CMC will cover the difference of 307 lei in the old and new charges without having the necessary financial resources. The consequences of this illegal decision emerged today, Oleg Cernei said. He made reference to the shorthand report of that CMC meeting which says that the Communist faction promised that the central administration will cover half of the expenses related of heat compensations. Mihai Ghimpu specified that the municipality has 132 million lei available, but taking into account the debts of 160 million lei, the City Hall and CMC have a deficit of 60 million lei at the moment. Pavel Caba, chairman of the faction of the Moldova Noastra Alliance, said that there is no crisis situation and there is no need to make a fuss to worry the population even more. He expressed hic confidence that the City Hall authorities can discuss the situation with Termocom SA at the negotiating table and can find a solution. Until then, they must be calm and patient. The conflict between Termocom SA and the City Hall sparked after the CMC on December 4 cancelled the heating charge of 540 lei and restored the old one of 233 lei for the population. The heat supplier responded by halting the supply of hot water and by disconnecting the City Hall from the heating system.