Cimislia district council accuses central government of political retaliation

The Cimislia District Council accuses the Communist authorities of political retaliation and announces mass protests “unless the financial discrimination of the district ends.” Such statements were made by the district president, Andrei Vacarciuc, at a news conference on Wednesday, March 5, at the Info-Prim Neo news agency. The statement is addressed to the Moldovan Parliament and Government and signed by 27 district councilors, village mayors, the district president and deputy president. According to the declaration, the Cimislia District Council expresses its indignation and asks the Communist leadership to review the decisions on bettering the unfavorable social-economic situation in some territorial-administrative units, having non-Communist top executives, as Cimislia district and Chisinau municipality. The statement specifies that cutting on the financial autonomy, excessively centralizing the public finances and unfairly sharing the capital investments among district budgets clearly tell of the leadership avenging on its political opponents. Thus, Basarabeasca district led by a Communist president, with twice less population than Cimislia district, in 2008 is going to receive about 25 mln lei in addition to the amount provided for in the state budget, while Cimislia district will get only 1 mln lei. The same parallel can be drawn as for municipalities. The budget of Balti municipality, with a Communist mayor and majority in the council, is to get 130 mln lei more, while the capital city, which is several times larger, will receive some 30% less only because the ruling party lost the City Hall and the Municipal Council. The Cimislia Council requires equal conditions from the Government concerning the amelioration of the social-economic situation in all Moldova’s districts and localities, regardless of the political color of the local public administrations and asks for allocating additional money from the state budget according to needs. Asked by journalists, Andrei Vacarciuc has specified that last year, when Cimislia had a Communist president, the district was disbursed 7.5 times more additional money. The district management informed the country’s top leaders on those claims, but got no reply so far. The district head may not be received by prime deputy prime-minister Zinaida Greceannii for a month. “We are totally ignored” he concluded. If the requests are turned a cold shoulder this time either, the declaration signatories say they’ll have to resort to protests. Andrei Vacarciuc specified they are likely both in Cimislia and Chisinau.