On June 14, the citizens of Moldova will vote the new local administration. IPN News Agency set the goal to determine how the local public authorities coped during the current term that is coming to an end. Experts, opinion leaders and representatives of civil society from different settlements will assess the activity of the local authorities of the country’s districts and municipalities. IPN series: Chisinau municipality.
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The municipality of Chisinau includes 35 settlements. The population of the municipality is over 750,000. Of these, 80,000 live in the suburban settlements.
Serghei Neicovcen, executive director of the Center “Contact”, said Chisinau municipality contains too many settlements and it is very hard to administer these. Where it is possible, the local authorities should manage more settlements as this will lead to reduced administrative costs. The state of affairs in Chisinau municipality in this respect is not the best. In districts, the relations between the district administration and the local authorities are better and closer than in the municipality of Chisinau. The authorities of the settlements that form part of the municipality are left to solve the problems by themselves.
The Center “Contact”, which is a nongovernmental organization, does not have a rich experience in working with the villages of Chisinau for the reason that these didn’t express interest in different projects. The mayor’s offices of these settlements proposed some cleanup and water supply projects, but didn’t implement projects that would serve as an example. There is a national contest concerning the good practices of local authorities, but the villages of Chisinau municipality do not take part in it and do not win prizes.
It is very important to develop closer relations between the local mayor’s offices and the Chisinau City Hall. The mayors of these settlements are practically not heard and seen. Only Chisinau and its administration are in the focus. Civic activism in the villages of Chisinau municipality is at a very low level. There are much more active villages in Moldova.
The lack of cooperation between the mayors and the Chisinau Municipal Council is the biggest problem. Another problem is the lack of cooperation between the municipal administration and the central authorities. Therefore, the municipal budget has always been adopted with delay and different activities were put off. In Parliament, the political factor can play an important role, but at local level the politicians must reach a consensus. However, there is no interest in establishing cooperation relations.
If he ran for the post of mayor general of Chisinau municipality, Serghei Neicovcen would lay emphasis on the involvement of people in the implementation of local projects, starting with the formulation of the ideal and ending with its realization. “They do not do something like this now. There are multiple ways by which the people could be engaged in the decision-making process. There are examples in the country where the local authorities cooperate with the people. In Chisinau, the decisions are taken in offices and there is no interest in attracting civic control. The people express interest in controlling something when they are engaged in the process from the very beginning. The cleanup and the parking lots are very important, but I would make the cooperation with the people a priority. To know which projects are essential, the people should be consulted so that they say what is important for them,” said the expert.
He also said that some of the promises made in the previous election campaign were even 90% fulfilled, like the rehabilitation of the Park “Valea Morilor”. But other promises were only 5% delivered, like the construction of new parking places. The project to collect waste separately didn’t achieve great results because there was no information campaign in this respect. The accomplishments are modest. In general, the promises were 50% fulfilled.
Serghei Neicovcen expects that there will be cooperation with the people after June 14. The local elections are different from the parliamentary ones and the people must take into consideration not the political color, but the capacity of the candidates to work together with other people. Cooperation is also needed between the Chisinau City Hall and the Municipal Council.
Mariana Galben, IPN
