Municipal councillor accuses CMC over Chisinau budget losses

A municipal councillor accuses the Chisinau Municipal Council (CMC) that it caused losses totalling 800 mln lei to the municipal budget, as a result of selling certain lands belonging to municipality for a ridiculously low price. Leader of Social Action Bloc (SAB) Mihai Roscovan addressed an interpellation to interim mayor Vasile Ursu and interim secretary of CMC Nicolae Manastarli, during the CMC sitting held on January 22, claiming that CMC sold for 6 mln lei lands measuring over 45 ha in area, the market price of which ranges from 400 to 800 mln lei, Info-Prim Neo reports. Roscovan says that at the sitting dated December 26, which he did not attend as he was abroad, CMC adopted a number of land-related decisions. After their subsequent examination, the councillor found that CMC showed a formal and superficial attitude. Thus, among the decisions regarding the privatisation of the lands adjacent to the privatised enterprises, there are more decisions to the advantage of certain groups of interests backed by the Government and Presidency, and that contravene the legislation, says the interpellation’s author. Besides, hundreds of draft decisions regarding the privatisation of the lands adjacent to the privatised enterprises, handed down for consideration earlier, were not examined in 2006 for subjective reasons, due to “bureaucracy and corruption in the City Hall”, said Roscovan. The councillor asserts that this fact will lead to damages sustained by legal entities, disputes with the City Hall, and cause losses to the municipal budget. Roscovan also says that the specialised commissions delay the adoption of the Concept and Regulations regarding the management of the land Fund in Chisinau municipality, as well as the temporary Regulations regarding the building of houses in the central zone, elaborated by the independent experts. SAB leader says that by selling certain large areas of land to gas stations, commercial, non-functional, less important enterprises or even to those that are dangerous for the capital, possibilities of implementing the General Urban Plan until 2025 are being undermined. “Given a catastrophic deficit of lands intended for social dwellings and other vital needs, the privatisation by mafia clans of certain large areas of land for symbolic prises, often 10-15-fold lower than the market price, is a crime against the community”, Mihai Roscovan asserts. In order not to allow unjustified expenses in the future, SAB leader suggested CMC to immediately set up a special commission that would examine in detail the draft decisions adopted on December 26, as well as the draft decisions stored at the City Hall’s organisations. Mihai Roscovan also requested the representatives of the administrative control Division within the Ministry of Local Public Administration to sue the decisions illegally adopted by CMC.