Mayor Chirtoaca: We've reached encouraging results despite financial hardship

“The Municipality of Chisinau must get disaccustomed to the Soviet method of administering things. We now need to employ a modern, European administration model, based on the rule of law, competence, quality standards and transparency”, declared Dorin Chirtoaca in his report on the completion of the second year of his term as mayor, Info-Prim Neo reports. The mayor read his report in front of Chisinau's citizens in Europe's Plaza on Thursday, speaking of his administration's achievements during 2008-2009 and priorities for 2009-2010. “Despite financial hardship, or more exactly a crisis provoked in 2007, for political reasons, by what is now the former communist government, we've reached certain results that encourage us to carry on”, stated Chirtoaca, claiming that because of government abuse the municipality had lost 1.6 billion lei, the size of a city's budget for one year. Talking about failures, the mayor mentioned the public transport reform, the housing management and the construction of roads. “In the period from 2008 to June 2009, the activity of the mayor's administration was hampered by the duality of power, created by some factions in the City Council”, explained the mayor. The first three priorities for the near future include efforts to rid the city of the unpleasant smell coming from the wastewater treatment station, the initiation of works to build a solid refuse recycling plant, and identification of a solution to the problem of stray dogs. “We hope we can recoup the sum of 600 million lei from the new government, which is about to be established. This money was taken abusively from us by the former communist government, through legal amendments and discriminatory distribution of public money”, declared the mayor. At the end of his speech, Chirtoaca called on the municipal functionaries and the city's residents to continue their work so as to secure a dignifying place for Moldova among the European family.