The authorities reported that 258 km of national roads have been repaired with foreign funds since 2009, while another 150 km of national and local roads were rehabilitated with money from the Road Fund. The drivers complain yet that the roads continue to be of a poor quality. According to the estimates of the Ministry of Transport and Road Infrastructure, the national roads necessitate investments of about 1.6 billion for repair works. IPN News Agency asked the election runners what else can be done to accelerate the pace of repair works and when and in what conditions these investments will be made. The contenders were also asked what solutions they have for ensuring the access to transport of the people living in isolated settlements and how they will fight the illegal passenger transportation activities.
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Ring roads for Chisinau municipality
The Democratic Party of Moldova considers that the modernization of road infrastructure must be one of the priorities of the future government. The rehabilitation of roads will help the country develop and will stimulate the development of the other sectors of the economy. Considerable progress was made the past year in improving road infrastructure. There were modernized such important national roads as Sarateni – Soroca and Chisinau – Giurgiulesti. The Hancesti – Cimislia and Chisinau – Ungheni – Sculeni national roads started to be repaired. The modernization of roads must continue at an accelerated pace by building ring roads for the municipality of Chisinau and for at least ten district centers over the next few years. This will represent a significant impetus for the general economic development of the capital city and the country’s districts. For the works to modernize the road infrastructure to be accelerated, the legislation must be further simplified, especially as regards the expropriation for public interest and the procedures for holding tender contests and challenging decisions.
Given the modernization of the road network over the last few years and the proposals for the future, the party considers that the basic interurban network can be modernized almost fully by 2018. Thus, the people will be able to travel comfortably from every district center to the municipality of Chisinau and between all the district centers. The rehabilitation of the local roads will be a priority for the next few years so as to ensure better connection between villages and district centers and with the capital city. 1 billion lei should be invested annually in the modernization of the local roads.
The Ministry of Transport and Road Infrastructure already started the program to optimize the bus and minibus services so that all the people have access to them, including those from small settlements. The new program envisions the creation of new routes that will cover all the villages and will join them to the district centers. Guarantees that the carriers will obey the set routes are to be obtained by instituting the electronic ticket that will allow monitoring the covered road by GPS systems. Extended legal instruments should be used to penalize those involved in illegal transportation activities. This and the debureaucratization of the transportation authorization system will stimulate the legalization of transport businesses. The Code of Road Carriers put forward by the Ministry of Transport, which is headed by a representative of the Democratic Parity, already took effect. The document provides new instruments for more efficiently fighting illegal transportation activities.
Water pipelines first and then roads
The Christian Democratic People’s Party believes that the authorities should stop taking out astronomical loans for repairing the roads as they impoverish the country given that huge foreign debts are accumulated. When the state cannot ensure minimum pensions that would cover the costs of living, the young specialists receive pays of 3,000 lei in the public system, while the schools are closed through lack of funds, the luxury highways are not a basic necessity. How stupid can we be to make smooth roads as in Europe and not to see that our villages are dying and there will be no people to use these roads soon? The foreign funds and the money from the Road Fund are stolen impertinently. If we make sure that the money allocated for repairing the roads is not misused, there will be built much more roads than now.
The amounts of money needed for repairing the rest of the roads in Moldova are impressive, but it is interesting who did such calculations and based on what kind of building materials as cheaper building materials can be found. However, it is now more important to supply every village with clean drinking water and sewerage and to provide economic activities in agriculture and the processing industry. The rise in pensions and minimum salaries and the financing of education and healthcare are not less important. Roads must be built, but depending on the current possibilities and priorities. It is the Ministry of Transport that should ensure access to transport of the people from all the villages, in cooperation with the local authorities. If need be, the state can partially subsidize particular transport services that are not attractive from economic viewpoint. As to illegal transport, the punishments should be toughened up.
Fiscal relaxation for carriers that fairly distribute tickets
The Liberal Reformist Party notes that Moldova over the last few years got €600 million in preferential loans and grants for rehabilitating the roads. Repair works on the roads were also performed with money from the Road Fund. This process will continue so that all the national roads and most of the local roads are rehabilitated. Foreign funds for road repair continue to be provided. The national roads are a priority as they will help to increase the movement speed and thus to grow the country’s economy.
There are yet unattractive destinations from financial viewpoint for passenger carriers in Moldova. The problem resides in the lack of infrastructure, but the situation started to improve. Our roads are being repaired and new roads appear so as to unite the whole Moldova and nobody remains isolated. The illegal passenger transportation activities can be combated by increasing the fines and intensifying inspections. Fiscal relaxation should be instituted for carriers that fairly distribute tickets.
Stimulated investments for public-private partnerships
The National Liberal Party said that in order to ensure the development of infrastructure, including by public investments, the legislation should be amended so as to ban using the foreign public loans obtained by the Government for current consumption. These resources should be used exclusively for investment projects, first of all in the area of infrastructure. This is provided in the Marshall Plan of the National Liberal Party and in the plan of the administration of the Union Council.
For a program to build and reconstruct local roads to be implemented, the investments must be stimulated by public-private partnerships and by using U.S. building technology, which is modern and implies minimum investments, but ensures high quality. The public transport must be organized based on entrepreneur’s patent, depending on the route, the quality of the road and the number of passengers.
Honest rules for holding tender contests
According to the Party of Socialists of the Republic of Moldova, road building is one of the sectors that are most seriously affected by corruption. This scourge should be removed and honest rules should be instituted for holding tender contests and for ensuring transparent public control over them. Another priority is implementing modern road building technology for ensuring a longer period of utilization. Preference should be given to the national entrepreneurs so that they create workplaces for the Moldovans.
The road maintenance and quality guarantee principle should be introduced. Also, a state investment fund should be set up for building roads with it. Besides internal resources, there will be attracted foreign loans/grants, including from the Eurasian Development Bank.
The illegal transportation activities entail illegal labor and solutions can be provided by amending the fiscal policies and by regulating the transportation activity.
Mayor’s offices obliged by law to provide community with transport services
According to the People’s Party of the Republic of Moldova, in 2013 alone 1.079 billion lei was allocated from the road fund for repairing and maintaining the public roads, plus €150 million from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and US$132 million from the U.S. Government for rehabilitating the Saratenii Vechi – Soroca road. The problem is that there are no Moldovan companies able to repair the roads and the authorities have to contract foreign companies. After the ratification of the Association Agreement between Moldova and the EU, the access to European funds for this area will increase. The correctness and efficiency in managing this money are the only impediments in this respect.
As to the rehabilitation of the local roads, the local public authorities should enjoy independence so as to be able to create conditions for developing businesses in the community and to collect money for investments into the local budgets. The mayor’s offices should be obliged by law to provide the community with transport services. The conditions for issuing licenses for passenger transportation should be reviewed so as to lay down clear rulers, including responsibilities. Attractive fiscal policies will make the companies working in this area more responsible.
Contract clauses on road maintenance and quality guarantees
The Liberal Party considers that for the pace of works to repair the roads and build new roads to be accelerated, new road building technologies should be implemented and a new road maintenance system should be worked out. For these objectives to be achieved, the public tender contests should be made more transparent and foreign companies should be contracted to perform the works. Contract clauses on road maintenance and quality guarantees are needed.
The rehabilitation of the road infrastructure is indeed costly. Therefore, the income sources must be diversified. Thus, besides the grants and preferential loans offered by the development partners, intelligent informatics systems for monitoring traffic online and levying road taxes and fines for traffic violations should be created for collecting own incomes. Another productive development method is to attract foreign investors to building national alternative highways and to lease them out and maintain them with money from road tolls. In its program, the Liberal Party provides that all the settlements will be connected to the public road network, while the local transport networks will be created or modernized so as to improve the ties between the urban and rural areas.
Besides ensuring the evident precondition – roads of a high quality – the Liberals consider that this desideratum can be achieved by restoring and developing in parallel the main infrastructure – water, sewerage, gas, waste collection, etc. The modernization of infrastructure will allow developing villages, including by investments, so that the number of residents and their purchasing power increase. The illegal passenger transportation activities represent a variety of the illegal entrepreneurial activity and the methods for combating them derive from the penal-administrative policy. A system should be worked out to plan, monitor and manage passenger and goods transportation, using integrated information systems.
Let’s stretch up to the edge of blanket only
Let’s stretch up to the edge of the blanket only. We cannot irresponsibly take out loans that not even our successors will be able to repay, when the roads will damage again, said independent candidate Oleg Brega. But, as long as the better roads ensure more prosperous businesses owing to increased mobility and accessibility, investments from the public budget are necessary. Instead of buying a luxury car for an inefficient functionary, we should better build one more kilometer of road. If we rationally and urgently reduce the costs for maintaining the system of government, we will save money for building good roads to the main destinations during two-three years.
As to the isolated settlements’ access to transport, it is opportune to subsidize local charter transport businesses so as to replace the regular services by vehicles for low-cost travel for vital, noncommercial necessities. Greater transparency should be ensured in the process of issuing licenses to carriers. There must be carried out more intransigent inspections and passed laws that will guarantee that the carriers will not work at a loss.
Professionalism and professional responsibility
The Green Ecologist Party said that we lack professionalism in road repair. The tender contests are often held with delay, in the middle of summer, and the roads are built at yearend. The contractors are not checked even if huge sums of money are invested. Professional responsibility is first of all needed in this area, while the contractors must be selected with great care. The European funds provide enough money for road building, but professional and competent people are needed for accessing these funds.
As to the creation of transport services in isolated, small settlements, there are large companies that should be obliged to provide transport there, not necessarily a bus or minibus, but low-capacity vehicles. There is good legislation allowing combating illegal transport, but it is not implemented. The system is corrupt, while the carriers involved in illegal activities belong to senior state officials. Moldova should use the practice of Belarus: when a carrier working illegally is identified, the vehicle is confiscated.
Negotiation of projects to attract foreign, public and private investments
The Centrist Union of Moldova considers that legality, transparence, equity and efficiency must be ensured in the process of holding tender contests for building or repairing roads so that the winning companies are chosen fairly and public money is not stolen. More kilometers of road will thus be built and repaired. Currently, the national budget does not include money for achieving this objective for known reasons. Thus, additional investments should be attracted for completing the national road rehabilitation program. Projects to attract foreign, public and private investments should be thus negotiated, based on agreements to lease out roads, international roads first of all.
A solution for providing all the settlements with transport services is to repair the roads to these settlements with the assistance of the local authorities and through the agency of public-private partnerships, including by providing tax and other kinds of concessions to the given carriers. Illegal passenger transportation can be combated by education and persuasion and by increasing the fines for careers and for state inspectors as well.
Note: IPN News Agency asked all the election runners to state their views on the given issue. The article contains the answers provided by the agreed date. The IPN series of materials produced before the November 30 parliamentary elections will continue with other important issues identified by the public. So far there were addressed such issues as the undeclared economy, the mandatory health insurance funds and social assistance.
Elena Nistor, IPN
