The salaries of mayors, deputy mayors and secretaries of councils will increase by 50%, said Minister of Funance Petru Rotaru. According to the official, the authorities are looking for funds to significantly raise the pays of local elected officials and the raise will be decided by an amendment that will be adopted by the MPs when giving a second reading to the draft state budget law, IPN reports.

In the mayors’ forum on December 9, President Maia Sandu called on the Government to identify funds to increase the salaries of the heads of the local public administration. The minister of finance noted that state budget funds will be allocated for raising the salaries of mayors, deputy mayors and secretaries of councils.

“I served as a mayor for a year. I know the problems, challenges, citizens’ expectations. This raise was requested. We are now actively looking for the funds needed to significantly increase the pays. I think the raise will be of over 50%. It is an essential raise for the mayors. We assume this raise with state budget funds for mayors, deputy mayors and secretaries of councils. We are also having discussions with the CALM so as to find a solution to liberalize the potential of the local public authorities so that if they have own incomes and these incomes are on the rise, they could pay the internal employees with own incomes. I hope we will reach a compromise here,” Petru Rotaru stated in the program “Résumé” on RliveTv channel.

According to the official, the salaries of mayors will be raised from next month and a relevant amendment to the state budget law will be proposed by MPs.

“Both the central public authorities and the local public authorities work in the interests of the citizens and they should be all treated equally so that we have cooperation between the CPAs and the LPAs. As regards the pay raise, I think there will be an amendment suggested by MPs between the first reading and the second reading and through this we will specify the fiscal space that allows for these raises,” said Petru Rotaru.

In Moldova there are now 895 mayors who were elected in the general local elections of this November.