On the night of December 2, there were only three persons in the tents put up in the Great National Assembly Square of Chisinau, three persons in the tents pitched in front of the Parliament Building and four persons in the tents placed in front of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Industry. But the number of policemen who maintain public order in those areas is ten times higher, acting Minister of the Interior Oleg Balan said in the last meeting of the acting Cabinet.
According to him, the protests are rather ‘expensive’ at a time when by 100 police officers are sent to maintain public order and prevent provocations every evening. These are on duty by 12 hours and the additional working hours of the policemen must be paid, in accordance with the law.
Oleg Balan specified that the police were placed on alert on September 6 and continue to work under a special regime. An additional sum of 10 million lei was asked for stimulating the employees of the Ministry of the Interior and paying the extra hours worked by these. Of this sum, 8.37 million lei was allocated to the General Police Inspectorate, 1.65 million lei of which has been already paid for the extra hours. Money was disbursed to all the subdivisions engaged in maintaining public order. A sum of 30,000 lei has been paid to the municipal carriers that provided units of transport for conveying police officers and carabineers to the place of work.
“There were 12 massive operations for maintaining public order. The value of the used fuel alone came to 36,000 lei. Thus, only the direct costs for transport and remuneration of the extra working hours totaled 9.126 million lei, which is practically the sum that we expect to be allocated after the state budget is amended,” stated the acting minister.
Acting Premier Gheorge Brega admitted that the protests ‘cost’, but ordered that the protesters should be visited by the police and examined by doctors given the recent rain and the colder weather.
