Energy inflation this year has reached the highest level in Moldova’s history and the price of electricity will increase considerably following the rise in natural gas rates, said economic expert Veaceslav Ioniță. However, he noted that the electricity prices will be maintained artificially until April or most of the citizens will be unable to cope with the bills. For their part, representatives of the government said the witnessed inflation is imported and the Government tries to help the citizen by providing subsidies and raising pensions and salaries, IPN reports.
Alexandru Slusari, of the Party “Dignity and Truth Platform”, said that even if the government does not have many instruments to control prices and tariffs, Moldova has a regulatory institution that should penalize abuses on the market and unjustified rises.
“Which is the most important body that fights unjustified price rises in a market economy? The Competition Council! Six months have passed since the elections. Do we have a functional Competition Council that would fight abuses and cartel agreements? The prices rise each week – of sugar, sunflower oil, methane. Why didn’t the Competition Council intervene immediately? There was an evident abuse,” Alexandru Slusari stated in the program “In Depth” on ProTV Chișinău channel.
Representatives of the government admitted that they fail to identify upright professionals ready to work for state institutions. The Competition Council also lacks professionals and has been therefore nonfunctional for months. PAS MP Radu Marian noted that the authorities do their best for the citizens to feel less the burden of price rises.
“It is very hard to find good and suitable people in this country. The good people do not come to work for public salaries. As to the prices, it is imported inflation. The post-pandemic situation led to inflation all over the world and we were seriously affected as we are an importing country. What the Government does and should do further is to contribute to the increase in the population’s incomes. We already started to raise the incomes of the most vulnerable groups and increased the minimum pension by 60%, allocated over 3 billion lei subsidies for natural gas, increased the minimum salary in the public sector by 40% and will continue with such measures,” stated Radu Marian.
Economic expert Veaceslav Ioniță said the NAER will accept Premier Energy’s request to raise the price of electricity only partially. The increase in tariffs will be put off until April.
“Energy inflation this year is unprecedented. Premier Energy could have asked for a rise in the tariff back in November. But NAER analyzed the situation and saw that if the citizens have to pay higher gas and electricity bills, they will take to the streets As a result, 100-150 million lei debts are collected monthly for electrical energy. The price of electricity will be raised in April as the gas bill will be lower then,” stated Veaceslav Ioniță.
On January 28, the National Agency for Energy Regulation decided to increase the natural gas rates from 11.08 lei to 15.18 lei with VAT included. The new rates will be applied as from January 1. In accordance with the Government’s decision, the old subsidization mechanism for household users will be kept and the state will partially subsidize the first 150 cubic meters of consumed gas. The state will also subsidize the first 500 cubic meters of consumed gas for all business entities.
