Chisinau Mayor pleads for long-term operational heating charge

The General Mayor of Chisinau says that they should apply a long-term operational heating charge. At the March 3 meeting of the Chisinau Municipal Council (CMC), Dorin Chirtoaca said that the new charge would be submitted for approval only after the heat supplier was subjected to auditing, Info-Prim Neo reports. The mayor said that, during discussions with World Bank experts, it was stressed the opportunity of approving of a new tariff for the heat supplied in the cold season. It was proposed that the consumers pay for the heat that will be supplied the next heating season during the next year in installments. In this way, the mayor says, the heating expenses in winter will not be so large. Dorin Chirtoaca also said that the new charge will include solely the costs of producing and transporting the heat, not the losses incurred by the heating supplier or the reserve funds. The CMC will decide on the allocation of financial resources for repair and other expenses to Termocom SA on the basis of concrete projects, so as to keep the company under control. After a new charge is approved, the municipal authorities will work out an individual compensation mechanism for the socially vulnerable groups of people. Only after that, if there are available resources, CMC will have the right to fix general compensations for the population, the mayor said, making it clear that, most probably, the consumers that will not benefit from individual compensations will have to fully pay the heating charge. The mayor avoided answering the councilors’ question if the new charge would be proposed until March 17, when a new hearing in the lawsuit over a higher heating charge filed by Termocom SA is set to take place. He said only that the new heating charge will be put forward in the near future. According to the information provided by deputy mayor Mihai Furtuna, from last January till the start of last December, the Chisinau City Hall transferred 248 million lei to Termocom SA to cover the difference in charges. The amount overdue for December 2007 totals 47 million lei. The Chisinau administration repeatedly stated that it could get insolvent, also because of the financial burden of covering the difference in heating charges. The local authorities say that when the heating season closes, the financial pressure will diminish.