Water and sewage fees will be reviewed by Chisinau Municipal Council

A decision regarding the increase of the water supply and canalization fees is examined by the specialized committee of the Municipal Council of Chisinau. The decision project plans for a fee of MDL 5.62 per ton of water and canalization for the first category of consumers, formed by the domestic consumers and vegetable farms from Chisinau municipality. Another fee, of MDL 20.49 per ton of water is suggested for economic agents, budgetary institutions and entrepreneurships, and individual persons undertaking entrepreneurships. The head of the „Apa-Canal Chisinau” JSC (ACC), Constantin Becciev claims that the project was already approved by two committees. These did not support the MDL 8.73 unique tariff for all consumer categories. The budget, economy, finances and local public property committee of the Municipal Council has postponed for the second time the decision on the project and will get back to it next week. According to the committee chairman, Vitalie Sacara, the committee requested the agreement of the National Energy Regulation Agency, an organization specialized in approval and computing of taxes. „Depending on the results of this inquiry we could make some conclusions – either we examine a unique tax for all consumer categories, or differentiated fees for natural and legal persons. It is immature to state something for now”, Sacara declared. ACC motivates the necessity to set the same fee for all consumer categories by modifying the ratio between the two categories. According to the head of the company, Constantin Becciev, if in 2001, the ratio of the population in the overall consumers’ number was 50%, now this ratio is 80%. Due to this, the water supplier has serious financial losses, and a differentiated fee would cause even more losses, Becciev declared. At present the taxes for water services and canalization are just MDL 2.62 for domestic consumers and MDL 14.9 for the other consumers. According to data from „Apa-Canal Chisinau”, in the last 6 months of this year, the incomes from its services have been MDL 140.8 million, and the expenses – MDL 168.5 million. At present, at every 2 tons of water and canalization, the company loses profit of approximately MDL 3.