The Parliament voted on Thursday, July 27 in first and second reading the draft Law proposed by the Government on offering compensations for all domestic consumers in the light of the increase of tariffs for natural gas. The draft was approved by the Government on July 17. Compensations will constitute 50% of the difference between the new tariff and previous tariff for natural gas, for a volume up to 30 cubic meters (inclusively) monthly for a dwelling. The leader of the Democrat Party, Dumitru Diacov said that only the disadvantaged categories of persons will receive compensations for natural gas and the minister of Economy and Commerce, Valeriu Lazar said that the present facilities of payment will be offered to 11 vulnerable categories who receive at present compensations for natural gas settled before. Lazar mentioned that the Government settled compensations for all consumers because all the population will be affected by the increase of the tariffs. He said that the compensation system used until now is not perfect, because there remain categories of population with small incomes not included in the category of vulnerable persons. Compensations will be offered to all consumers until an efficient system will be created, which would correctly separate the social categories really needing financial support, Lazar said. The leader of MNA, Serafim Urecheanu said that the draft presented by the Government is a declarative document, unprepared and which is an “insult of the government towards the citizens of Moldova”. “The population is forced to pay more so that the power stations would benefit from lower prices”, MNA leader declared. More serious is, according to him, the fact that families with many children using natural gas for heating their houses will be affected because they use more than 30 cubic meters of natural gas. At the same time, the situation of the inhabitants from rural localities is even more painful. Starting 2002 they massively invested in gasification, ignoring other energetic resources; under these conditions they will have to pay about MDL 5 thousand in winter. According to the information presented by Moldova-Gaz, the figure of the consumers using up to 30 cubic meters of natural gas exceeds 260 thousands, which constitutes 2/3 of the total consumers. The compensation offered by the state will be of MDL 11.1 for a dwelling, being significant for those consuming up to 9 cubic meters of natural gas.