Government to offer compensations on natural gas for all domestic consumers

The Government approved in the meeting on June 17 the draft Law on the measures of social protection of the population regarding the increase in price of the tariffs for natural gas. According to the Press Service of the Government, the draft law stipulates giving compensations to all domestic consumers. The compensations will amount to 50% of the difference between the old and the new tariff for natural gas, for a volume of up to 30 cubic meters (including) monthly for a dwelling. According to the information of JSC “Moldova-Gaz”, the number of beneficiaries consuming monthly up to 30 cubic meters of natural gas constituted on July 1 2006, 262.4 thousand households of which 148 thousand were consuming monthly up to 15 cubic meters of natural gas. The expenses related to the implementation of the law will be paid from the state budget. According to the agreement signed between the Russian Concern “Gazprom”, starting July 1, 2006, Moldova imports natural gas at the price of USD 160 for 1 thousand cubic meters, compared with USD 110 in the first semester. In an interview offered to the News Agency Info-Prim Neo, the head of the International Relationships Programs and Politic Analysis within the independent analytic Ceneter “Expert-Grup”, Alexandru Oprunenco, said that the facilitation offered to all domestic consumers for the first 30 cubic meters will be hard to maintain financially. These measures can become contradictory to the provisions of the memorandum signed with IMF and in this case, authorities will have a hard task – whether to undertake some measures to avoid social tensions, endangering in this way the relationships with IMF, or to maintain these relationships to consumers’ detriment.