How the Chisinau residents will remember the Chisinau Municipal Council of 2003-2007. Analysis by Info-Prim Neo, Part II

To fill in the information gap created through lack of legislative provisions and of a practice by which the local officials could report on their activity at the end of the tenure, the News Agency “Info-Prim Neo” started a series of analyses on the performance of the local public administration of the capital that is completing its mandate. The First Part broadcast on April 30 concerned the political aspect of the theme and had as title “CMC of 2003-2007 as Instrument for Settling Accounts”. [A CMC that cannot economically organize the city and improve the life of the ordinary people] [From social-economic standpoint,] CMC is completing its tenure as powerless as tremendous it wanted to seem from political angle. There is the impression that the social-economic life of the capital occurred independently from the activity of the CMC. From qualitative and quantitative viewpoints, the tendencies and rates remained the same as before 2003: the same weight in the country’s economy and budget, the same development rates and lastly the same statistical indexes. The social-economic life of Chisinau occurred sooner according to some inertia and the general development course of the Republic of Moldova than according to the specific game rules worked out by the CMC. The largest majority of the normative and regulatory documents of the capital (conceptions, strategies, regulations, projects, statutes, etc.) have been formulated towards the end of the mandate, so that it is difficult to form an opinion about their quality and efficiency. The CMC’s indecisiveness in dealing with the issue of tariffs on municipal transport and of water and sewerage charges during all these years became proverbial. Meanwhile, the respective enterprises found themselves on the verge of collapse and the entire budget and, respectively, the ordinary people had to pay for the indecisiveness or incompetence of the decision makers on the CMC. The communal heating charges were also adopted at the end of the term, with an evident political flavor. The current composition of the CMC could have been commended only for the adoption of the new General Urbanistic Plan of the capital, if, in this case too, the CMC’s efforts hadn’t been doubled or more often annihilated by the decision makers that do not form part of the CMC. The multiple thematic meetings summoned by the Government and by the head of state ended, as a rule, with instructions and suggestions that had to put the CMC in a difficult situation. Here can be mentioned the President’s instructions regarding the creation of a special municipal service that would deal exclusively with the construction of Cantemir Boulevard, by using investments of hundreds of millions of dollars. But a part of the experts that participated in the working out of the General Urbanistic Plan warned that the construction project cannot be fully implemented, for legal reasons inclusively. Only after several months, the capital’s administration set up a commission that is to examine the necessity of mapping out Cantemir Boulevard and reconstructing the adjacent quarters, by introducing these works in the already-approved development plan of the Chisinau municipality... All the other ‘noticeable’ social-economic projects implemented in the capital did not have the CMC as supporter. Moreover, most of the times the CMC members were not even asked to give their opinion about them. Such projects as the reconstruction of the square in front of the Opera House, the renovation of the Monument of Stefan cel Mare and paving of the adjoining areas, the repair of the Memorial Complex “Eternity”, the reconstruction of Pan Halipa Street and of a segment of Izmail Street, the asphalting of the central streets, the so-called “European-type” quarters, the shifting of the minibus routes from Stefan Cel Mare Boulevard to adjacent streets, the weeding out of staff according to political criteria were drawn up by other institutions, for other reasons than for the good of the municipality, by using other instruments and resources. The CMC approved them docilely, post-factum, when it was asked to endorse an accomplished act. It is true that the respective decisions were made, as a rule, by the two parliamentary groups that formed the government coalition – the Communist Party of the Republic of Moldova (PCRM) and the Christian Democratic People’s Party (PPCD) – but in history and in Chisinau residents’ memory they will remain decisions by the CMC. The stipulations of the municipal budget were not taken account of either, but, conceptually, this is one of the most important tasks of the CMC. The Government allocated or promised additional money to Chisinau when it wanted, for what it wanted, on its own initiative or, most of the times, on the President’s request. At one of the meetings in April 2007, the Government instructed the Ministry of Finance to pay the debts towards the construction companies involved in the implementation of the abovementioned projects, “on the presentation of justificatory documents”. We can understand that there were no “justificatory documents” at the stage when the works were being projected, in the form of expenditure estimates for instance, or that these documents have not been presented yet or what was presented cannot be considered as “justificatory”. However, millions of lei were spent in the capital without the involvement of the Chisinau Municipal Council. Instead, it seems that a part of the Chisinau officials, especially those that have “the majority vote” on hand, adapted themselves rather well to the advantages offered by it. As far as it is known, the interpellation filed by an Opposition councilor remained without answer up till now. The councilor claimed that at the final meeting of last year, the CMC caused damage to the municipal budget by selling plots of land at ridiculously low prices. It should be noted that the budget of the Chisinau municipality totals about 1.3 billion lei. Under similar suspicions, a number of municipal functionaries, who were also suspected of joining Opposition political organizations, served several months in jail. Their guilt has not been proven for two years already. The interpellation submitted repeatedly to all the courts by another Opposition councilor has expected an answer for more than a year already. According to the intimation, PCRM has been building headquarters illegally in the center of Chisinau on the area of a playing ground for children, with a Government Decision banning for years the allocation of land in the historical center of the capital. There is no reaction to the accusation brought half a year ago regarding the forging of the documents for selling the radio and television municipal stations at low prices, committed by the former leader of the PPCD parliamentary group at a plenary meeting of the CMC under the “eye” of the many video cameras, who was promoted to the post of deputy mayor on social, cultural and, respectively, mass media issues shortly afterwards. The public opinion insists that the public patrimony of these stations was divided between the parties holding “the majority vote”. The editorial policy implemented by the respective stations after put up to tender confirms this “view” of the public opinion. There is no news about the legal proceedings instituted against local government functionaries for being caught taking bribe red-handed, and the people say that this case was hushed up because among the accused was the son of a councilor from the government circles that is rather convincing and intransigent in his official speeches. [These and other similar “activities” of the government coalition at local level happened on the background of an anemic, disorganized and disoriented political Opposition. The performance of the Opposition forces in the current CMC will be examined in the next part of the Info-Prim Neo analysis titled “How the Chisinau residents will remember the Chisinau Municipal Council of 2003-2007„.]