Heat tariff in Chisinau could reach 740 lei

The heat tariff in Chisinau may reach to be 740 lei/Gcal. From this amount, the population is to pay 540 lei per Gcal, and the rest will be covered from the municipal budget. The provisions are part of a memo agreed by the local administration, heat distributor Termocom and gas supplier Moldovagaz, which was approved by the Chisinau Municipal Council (CMC) on Tuesday, November 11. The intended charge will be enforced if it gets voted by the CMC. The nominal compensation regulation is also in force to help the Chisinau households with less than 1450 lei per family member, Info-Prim Neo reports. According to the memo, the CMC is to pay the debts of 148 million it owes Termocom and other 60 million that will accrue till the year-end. 70 million of those are to granted by the Government as a loan till the end of the year. The rest of the money, the CMC's chairman Eduard Musuc assures will be gathered from land sales. He represented the municipality at the talks . The memo also provides for the municipality to take loans from three banks, totaling 100 million lei, in case of failing to repay the running debt. The difference of charge will be paid till the end of the heating period, as other 120 million lei are to be allocated from the municipal budget for January-March of 2009. A number of opposition municipal councilors questioned the legality of the Memorandum. According to Liberal-Democratic faction leader Alexandru Tanase, as long as the document is signed by no party, it cannot be valid. Liberal councilor Mihai Ghimpu called “a sheet of paper made in the Government's rooms and inserted into the CMC” and “a step allowing Termocom's pipes to pass to Gazprom, as they are now owned by the local administration.” Oleg Cernei, a council with Moldova Noastra Alliance, said the memo is a challenge containing only obligations on the part of the CMC. Cernei stated the document was drafted right now because of the CIS summit (on November 13 in Chisinau – e.n.), “and the people need to be held under control.” The leaders of the factions in the majority coalition showed satisfaction with the Government's intervention, as it used to state it could not get involved in this conflict. In a press release issued on Tuesday, the Cabinet accused mayor Dorin Chirtoaca of incompetence and qualified the situation as “an imminent humanitarian catastrophe”, in which “the Government cannot continue to play the role of a passive player.” The Cabinet also assures all the Chisinau municipality will be heated on Wednesday. For his part, Chisinau's mayor Dorin Chirtoaca accused the central authorities of staying behind this conflict from the very beginning. He says the last week's moves by the Government are “crimes against the population.” He says “such a situation will last in the country as long as it is governed by state structures which have lost the sense of reality.” Earlier Termocom asked for a tariff of 822 lei/Gcal. The City Hall said then the present tariff of 540 lei is justified. The conflict in the heating-energy sector of Chisinau started on November 4 , as the Termocom heat distributor halted delivering heat and hot water to Centru and Buiucani districts and the suburbs, after just 1 day after starting the heating. Termocom then asked for 36 million lei from the 176 million owed to it by the municipality, invoking that Moldovagaz had halted the natural gas supply to it because of running debts. Although the municipality transferred the money on November 7, on November 11 a number of kindergartens, schools and hospitals still did not have heat and hot water.