Energy expert Victor Parlicov, former director of the National Agency for Energy Regulation (NAER), said the gas tariffs should be raised, but they will not be raised this year for political reasons. According to him, the NAER should already consider increasing the price of gas, but continues to focus on the political agenda and does not raise this subject, IPN reports.
Victor Parlicov noted the gas tariff should be raised even if the purchase price of gas decreased. Despite the fact that a purchase price of US$178 per 1,000 cubic meters was set for last year, de facto Moldova bought the gas for over US$220 per 1,000 cubic meters on average. Respectively, the price last year didn’t cover this difference in costs. “Theoretically, according to the NAER’s methodology, these tariff deviations should be included in the price for next year. This means the price should now include last year’s losses,” the expert stated in the talk show “About us” on Jurnal TV channel.
According to him, if the NAER had behaved apolitically, in a purely technocratic way, it should have now examined tariff increases. “The NAER will continue to deal more with the political agenda than to regulate prices. Our problem is that the politicians deal with tariffs, while the regulator, the NAER, which should deal with tariffs, focuses on politics,” stated Victor Parlicov.
The expert considers the problem of high tariffs does not exist in Moldova. “In our country, the tariffs are lower than in most of the states of the region, except for Ukraine, where there are large subsidies through tariffs. We do not face the problem of high tariffs. We experience the problem of low incomes,” he noted.
According to the expert, the Moldovan consumers will have to cover the costs associated with the maintaining of gas transit pipelines as no gas will be now transported via Moldova and Russia’s Gazprom will not pay for this service.
