Mayor convenes Chisinau Council extraordinary meeting

Chisinau Mayor Dorin today convened an extraordinary meeting of the City Council after Termocom, the city's main heat provider, failed to persuade Moldova-Gaz to resume gas supplies. As a consequence, thousands in the city and its outskirts still lack hot water in their faucets and radiators. Chirtoaca recalled at a press briefing preceding the Council's meeting that on October 5 he issued a letter of guarantee in which the municipality vowed to transfer, within a couple of days, 35 million lei out of the 175 million lei debt owed to Termocom. For its part, Termocom was supposed to present that letter to the gas supplier. The mayor said he didn't manage to get in touch with the administration of Moldova-Gaz, but earlier today sources within the company told him that the letter “got lost somewhere in the administrative department”. All the parties involved have earlier admitted that the biggest problem is the uncertainty about the heating charge. Whereas Termocom solicits a rate of 822 lei per G-calorie of heat, the current one of 540 lei suits the municipality just fine. City councilor Oleg Cernei of AMN told reporters before entering the assembly chamber of the City Council that “no faction will assume the political responsibility to adopt the rate requested by Termocom knowing that elections are approaching”.