Trade Unions Confederation of Moldova is concerned about the situation of natural gas consumers

Trade Unions Confederation of Moldova (TUCM) calls the Government for negotiations on intensifying the protection of natural gas consumers, after the recent increase of the natural gas tariffs by 50%. The president of TUCM, Petru Chiriac states that the proposals of the Unions include revising the list of persons who will benefit of nominative compensations settled by the Governmental Decision nr. 761 from July 31, 2000 and namely offering nominative compensations to all persons with lower incomes than country’s average wage, settling new methods of estimating the costs for communal services so that they would not exceed 20% of the family income for any period of the year, as well as adjusting the wages of the natural gas consumers that do not benefit of nominative compensations. According to Chiriac, the increase in price of the tariffs for natural gas will harden the situation of citizens, taking into consideration that 1/3 of the employees have a salary equal to the existence minimum, and about 50% - under the level of the medium wage. In this way the share of the natural gas consumption will constitute about 3% of the average wage incomes of the national economy employees. The share of the expenses for the employees of the agricultural area will constitute 6.5%, culture – 4.3%, education – 3.8%, health – 3.6%. In this way, according to trade unions, the population’s total share of expenses for communal services in different periods of the year constitutes 10-55% for an apartment with one room. Starting Thursday, July 20, the power plants with heating will pay MDL 1745 per 1000 cubic meters of natural gas, comparing with the previous tariff of MDL 1160. The tariff for the Heating Plants and Boiler Houses will increase from MDL 1368 to 2057. The most affected of the increase are the domestic consumers, who will pay MDL 2196 per 1000 cubic meters of natural gas comparing with MDL 1460 for a consume of 30 cubic meters and MDL 2812 instead of 1870 for the consume of this volume. At the same time, consumers will supplementary pay the VAT of 5% of the total calculated sum for natural gas consumption. In 2005 the consume of natural gas in Moldova amounted to USD 1.315 billion, of which 41% had been consumed by the thermo-energetic area, 31% - by other economic agents and 27% - by domestic consumers.