Chisinau Council sells no-bid plots, as municipality needs money badly: Councilor

The Chisinau Municipal Council (CMC) indulges in giving plots of land to firms without holding auctions, as the municipal budget is extremely small, the leader of the Liberal Party (PL) and a councilor in CMC, Mihai Ghimpu, accuses. He pointed to two transactions, which, he says, were made without an operator holding auctions to sell the lands owned publicly. According to Mihai Ghimpu, through its decision of 1 August 2008, the CMC gave the Codru firm a plot of 1.25 ha at 5.8 million lei, on Mihail Sadoveanu str., and the firm SRL Fascomtrans – an area of 192 sq. m. on Cosbuc str. He is angered the price was too small. Asked by Info-Prim Neo to comment the accusations, [Communist councilor Alexandru Roman] has said Mihai Ghimpu has misinformed the public. Roman accuses Ghimpu that, when the latter one was the CMC chairman, “he put up for discussion only the cases he was personally interested in.” “I recall tens of decisions which were adopted without the endorsement of the relevant CMC committee, inly because Ghimpu desired so,” he added. “Mr. Ghimpu considers that everything goes badly after the re-election of the CMC's chairman, not as he would like to. It's populist provocation. They want to throw a shadow on the CMC's work since Eduard Musuc is a chairman,” Alexandru Roman said. [CMC chairman Eduard Muşuc], the secretary of the Social-Democratic Party, has called Mihai Ghimpu's statements as “aberrant and truthless.” He says he is not aware of the Codru firm case. As for the Fascomtrans firm, Musuc says the question is about renting the plot, not selling it. “I shall ask Ghimpu why he did not organize, when chairing the CMC, a tender to select the operator of public auctions in Chisinau,” Eduard Musuc stated, mentioning this has been done recently, after he was elected as a CMC chairman. [Leader of the Humanist faction Oleg Oniscenco], also the chairman of the Committee for constructions, architecture and land resources, has said, before reaching the order of the day of the CMC, those issues are discussed by specialized commission and are checked. “Mr. Ghimpu's statements have an aspect of color.” “As for Fascomtrans, after talking much at the session, they decided to rent the plot, because since 2005 this company was beaten about the bush by City Hall bureaucrats, and this made the municipality lose over 60,000 lei. As for the Codru firm, the question is that, from 2005 to 2007, that plot of land, on which a market was, was withdrawn by the City Hall. All we did was to give another plot to this company instead,” Oleg Oniscenco said. “All that was discussed by the relevant commission, consisting of councilors from all the factions, including the PL,” Oleg Oniscenco said. In mid-October, the CMC selected an operator to hold auctions -- Capital-imobil.