Chisinau City Hall seeks revision of heating bill relief regulation

The Chisinau City Hall intends to petition the Municipal Council (CMC) asking it to reconsider the amendments made to the regulation on heating bill relief, Info-Prim Neo reports. At a news conference on Tuesday, Mayor Dorin Chirtoaca said that “the regulation is nonfunctional since it doesn't have financial coverage”. In its petition, the City Hall will insist that those seeking assistance in coping with their heating bills must submit their applications to the Social Assistance Division, and not to the district offices. Other requirements will be to stipulate the source of the financial coverage, to eliminate the discrimination between urban and suburban households, and to establish a share of assistance which the municipality will be able to sustain financially, said Chirtoaca. The Mayor has added that if his suggestions are not taken into account, the regulation will be applied “to the extent possible”. “I'm inclined to think that, in fact, the Communist, the Christian-Democrat, the Social Democrat and the Humanist factions, as well as councilor Valeri Klimenko are still seeking to push the City Hall into a financial blockage”, Chirtoaca fumed. Calculations made by the municipal department responsible for housing and public utility matters indicated that the sum needed to implement the new bill relief program for the needy is around 1 billion lei. In contrast, the City Hall's financial contribution in the last year's heating assistance scheme, which included all the households in the city (and not just the needy), was three times smaller. “The initially proposed project was logical and realistic. It halved the municipality's expenditures for this purpose. It would have been better if they just left things as they were. Now the CMC reversed the regulation against the desired effect”. “As attractive as a 100 percent relief on the heating bill may seem, let's keep our feet on the ground. We can't take more than we can handle. It's like venturing into building a subway system in Chisinau”, Chirtoaca stated.