Municipal councillors should be free to speak about enterprises subordinated to CMC without being hushed up - Oleg Cernei

Councillor of “Moldova Noastra” Alliance (AMN) in the Chisinau Municipal Council (CMC) Oleg Cernei says that according to the law a municipal councillor shall be free to speak about any problem related to the enterprises subordinated to CMC, without being accused or attacked for his opinion. At a Monday’s news conference, Oleg Cernei referred to the information spread last week by “Termocom” JSC that condemned the “conduct of councillors Valeri Climenco and Oleg Cernei for the misinformation campaign following the approval of the new price for heat”. Referring the language used by “Termocom”, according to which “the campaign to denigrate the parties that voted for the new charge and the enterprise’s staff” are “absurd and groundless”, Cernei mentioned that, through these statements, the enterprise’s manager Dionisie Antocel is engaging in the electoral campaign, protecting the parties that approved the price hike: the Communists’ faction, PPCD, and unaffiliated councillor Mihai Severovan. “Politics made its way into the activity of this institution subordinated to CMC, and I assume that the resources spent from the budget to pay the price difference could be used for supporting communists in elections”, Cernei said. As AMN councillor says, the reason for the heat price hike was conditioned by international donors, which requested that the charges be adjusted in order to have the EUR 1.2 bln aid package provided. Although initially it was expected that both budgets – state and local – would equally cover the price difference, the state authorities changed their mind and obliged the municipality to pay the necessary 220 mln, Cernei says. “Consumers must understand that given the miserable pensions, salaries, and nominative compensations, it is unfair to charge 540 lei for heat. It is a cheap populism when the communists say that the budget covers the price difference, because a local budget of about 1.3 bln lei cannot afford the luxury to allocate 220 mln to cover the price difference. I am sure that in the next heating season, the population will be obliged to pay 100% the charge of 540 lei”, Cernei asserts. The councillor called on economic entities, private and public institutions, to which the new charge was applied as from January 1, not to pay the bills because it was applied illegally. The new tariff had to come into effect as of February 1, after adopting the decision, not retroactively. Neither the Law on Local Public Authorities nor the CMC Regulations stipulate that the Council’s decisions have retroactive effect, Cernei said.