Representatives of the local authorities expressed their dissatisfaction with the fact that even if numerous policy documents and commitments lay emphasis on the consolidation of the financial autonomy of local public authorities, especially the fiscal and income basis, not much was done in this regard and the process now even stagnates. The issue was developed by the executive director of the Congress of Local Authorities of Moldova (CALM) Viorel Furdui in hearings on the plan of action for implementing the national decentralization strategy for 2012-2018, held by the Parliament’s commission on public administration, IPN reports.
According to Viorel Furdui, the Ministry of Finance, which presented in Parliament the budgetary-fiscal policy for 2018, fully neglected the CALM’s proposals and violated the local and financial autonomy. Furdui and MP Iurie Tap, who insisted on staging the hearings, expressed their dissatisfaction with the lack of decision makers at the hearings and with the absence of continuous communication between those who are responsible for the implementation of the national decentralization strategy. Viorel Furdui noted that by the changes proposed to the 2018 budgetary-fiscal policy, the taxable basis of the local public authorities and the mechanism of administering local taxes were limited.
The CALM’s administration requests to remove the provisions by which the peasant farmsteads and ordinary farms are excluded from the remit of the local public authorities. Viorel Furdui said the Congress of Local Authorities of Moldova is concerned about the lack of measures aimed at consolidating the local fiscal basis and about the fact that a new form of control was instituted, which is the “monitoring” by the State Chancellery of the way in which the local authorities set particular taxes.
The Ministry of Finance’s representative expressed a different opinion, saying the Ministry actually intended to help the local public authorities by introducing three new local taxes, including the parking one. Namely this type of tax aroused the curiosity of the MPs who were present at the hearings. These asked what kind of parking tax can be levied in communities with a population of several hundred people where there is no market at least to travel to it by car.
Iurie Tap said the implementation of the national decentralization strategy was postponed for another three years at the request of the Government. As there are no concrete governmental strategies, the local authorities do not clearly understand how to distribute the responsibilities and created services. It is not clear who will be responsible for the sustainability of these services.
At the end of the hearings, it was agreed that the discussions on the implementation of the strategy will be continued in Parliament and officials of the Government should also take part in these so as to decide the subsequent actions.
