Protest at Chisinau City Hall

People living on Drumul Bacioiului Street in Chisinau’s Botanica district came to the City Hall to tell the local authorities that they no longer resist without water. Two years ago, the City Hall submitted a draft project to build an aqueduct in this area to the Chisinau Municipal Council (CMC). The Council approved the project and allocated about 800,000 lei for starting work. Last autumn, the money was used up and the works stopped, Info-Prim Neo reports. “We are driven to extremity. We cannot live without water anymore. It is very hot and we bring water from wells located several kilometers away. The wells have practically dried up. The water in the wells with little water is not drinkable,” complained Ecaterina Doaga, one of the protesters. A sum of 1.3 million lei was planned in the 2009 municipal budget for this aqueduct. But the CMC has not yet approved Annex 1 on Capital Constructions, while the contractors do not want to work ‘on credit’. “How many more years will pass until this problem is solved,” asked another protester, Filip Morari. “We have come to the City Hall for two years and complained, but all in vein. Nobody hears us. They could at least bring water in tanks for us,” he said. The leader of the PPCD faction in the CMC Alexandru Corduneanu, who chaired today’s meeting of the CMC, said that the councilors tackle this problem, but a number of projects, including this one, were suspended as the financing could not be approved owing to the situation in the Council. “I hope that Annex 1 will be approved today and the construction works will continue,” he said. Deputy mayor Nistor Grozavu, who will act as Mayor General until Dorin Chirtoaca returns, said that the local authorities deal with this problem, but the CMC has not yet approved the annex and the City Hall cannot finance the works without the Council’s consent. “I think this is an electoral action. This problem is over two years old, but the people came to protest only now,” Nistor Grozavu said.