It’s estimated that about 60% of Moldova’s population will qualify for the maximum amount of energy compensations, Minister of Social Protection Marcel Spatari said.

He told a program on Vocea Basarabiei that the government assigns an energy vulnerability score to a household based on four criteria.

“The main factor is the share of energy expenses in the household budget, i.e. the percentage of the household budget that goes to paying energy bills. Families that spend more than 2/3 of their budgets on these bills will be designated as being in the highest energy vulnerability category. And we are talking about 2/3 of the households in our country. That means 60% of the population will receive the maximum compensation. 15% of the population will receive a compensation close to the maximum, and only 1% of the population is in the non-vulnerable category”, said Marcel Spatari.

According to the minister, all beneficiaries will have to fill out an energy vulnerability form online, where they will have to indicate the household income, the number of family members, the heating method and the share of the energy expenses in the family budget. Beneficiaries will bear responsibility for the accuracy of their submissions.

“People will declare their income. In our information system, we will aggregate all the data of a family from the filings to the Tax Inspectorate, the Social Insurance, and so on, and will compare the value declared by that family against what the government knows. If the value known to the government is higher than the value declared, the known value will be the one to be considered for the compensation. There is also this self-declaration asserting the authenticity of the submitted data. The purpose of the compensation is to make sure the bills are paid,” said Marcel Spatari.

Household consumers currently pay a rate of 22.99 lei for a cubic meter of gas.