Hall’s accounts may still remain frozen: General Mayor

The municipality has no available money to build flats for law-enforcers, as ordered by some 140 court writs, and thus it cannot lift the sequestration on the City Hall’s cars, said Hall officials at the sitting of March 10, Info-Prim Neo reports. According to them, the state has legally obliged the municipal authorities to provide dwelling space to a certain categories of public servants (police, prosecutors, judges) yet it allocated no money in this respect. As a result, no dwelling space could be granted, and the applicants won the cases in courts. The head of the Finances General Direction, Maria Caraus, said the amount of 100 mln lei, needed to lift the sequester, may be paid off, only in case the City Hall had had available money to operate the payments, but they were not provided for in the municipal budget for 2008. “The expenditures to enact the writs should be made from available means, which are not envisaged in the budget,” Maria Caraus said. According to her, the money daily coming into the account is strictly used to cover the due arrears. The Finances Direction head says now there are no problems with funding the expenses provided for in the budget. Maria Caraus believes the municipality should seek for other sources to cover the expenses incurred because of court writs. Taking into account all the signals come from the central government lately, the risk of having the City Hall’s banking account further blocked is there, said mayor Dorin Chirtoaca. According to him, in case the sequestration is applied, the local administration won’t be able to operate the payments as due. Under these circumstances, the mayor asked all the Hall functionaries to pay enhanced attention to the mode of spending and rationalizing the public money. According to him, any expense, unable to be justified, will be used against the local authorities. The mayor underlined this way the functionaries would be liable to be accused of wasting and mismanaging the public money. A week ago, the Justice Ministry sequestered the cars of the Chisinau City Hall and Municipal Council, because of not honoring the writs ordering to provide dwellings to law-enforcing officers, for the last 10 years.