Mechanism for calculating rent for press institutions that lease state space must be modified, expert

The executive director of the Independent Analytical Center “Expert- Grup” Valeriu Prohnitchi considers that the present mechanism for calculating rent for the media outlets that lease rooms from the state is inequitable and suggests modifying it, Info-Prim Neo reports. According to the expert, the inclusion of periodical publications in the same group as the units that prepare and sell food is not only a juridical but also an economic nonsense. “The income is incomparable. For example, the turnover of Ziarul de Garda paper varies between 36,000 and 50,000 lei, while of a Galbenus canteen can exceed 1 million lei a month,” Prohnitchi said at a meeting of the Public-Private Working Group for Strengthening the Press. The analyst said that the periodical publications that lease rooms for example at the Press House are more similar to public associations, employers organizations or foundations and they should be taxed a coefficient of 0.1 not 0.5. If the coefficient is reduced, the yearly price for a leased square meter will decrease from 617 to 518 lei. The economist also suggests reducing the market coefficient K4 from 1.0 to 0.5. “The reduction of this coefficient would have a greater influence on the rent than the inclusion of the press institutions in another group of institutions. If the coefficient is decreased to 0.5, the tariff paid by the media outlets for the leased rooms will be 259 lei not 518 lei per square meter,” Prohnitchi said. “A newspaper would save 10,000 lei a year for the rent of 30 square meters of room. The state would lose about 500,000 lei a year, but this money can be easily recovered by other methods,” he added. Under Annex No.12 of the Law on the State Budget for 2009, the price paid by the media outlets that lease offices owned by the state is calculated on the basis of a tariff and a number of coefficients. The basic tariff for Chisinau is 247 lei, for Balti - 175 lei, for the other municipalities and towns - 127 lei, for the settlements that form part of municipalities - 96 lei, for villages – 31.9 lei. The Public-Private Working Group for Strengthening the Press was set up as part of the Improving the Media Sector’s Legal Framework and Economic Status Project, which is a component of the Strengthening Civil Society Monitoring Capacity in Moldova Program. The program is financed by the Millennium Challenge Corporation and managed by the United State Agency for International Development as part of the Threshold Country Program for Moldova.