Municipal councillors seek to value Antena C and Euro TV

A group of municipal councillors requests to hire an independent real estate assessor to estimate the real value of “Antena C” and “Euro TV Chisinau” stations. In the councillors’ opinion, because of undermining the real price of the stations, valued by the State Audit and Assessment Enterprise, the price offered by the buyers caused losses worth MDL 7 mln to the municipal budget, Info-Prim Neo reports. The interpellation signed by 13 councillors was made known during the Chisinau Municipal Council sitting held on Thursday, March 15, by the representative of the Social Action Bloc (SAB), Mihai Roscovan, and is addressed to the interim mayor, Chisinau Administrative Control Division of the Ministry of Local Public Administration, General Prosecutor’s Office and the Centre for Combating Economic Crime and Corruption. Mihai Roscovan says the reasons for these requests are the illegalities committed while selling the stations. He says the subject of the sales contract it is very unclear, because the assessment report is referring to the stations’ assets, while the contract – to the municipal enterprises as a whole, and these should have had different prices. At the same time, according to the cited source, under the point 3.4 of the Contract, CMC guarantees that these assets “are no subjects of any litigation, no third person submitted petitions or other claims related to this patrimony”. But the present state of affairs is absolutely different, taking into account the action undertaken by the employees of the two stations, which shows that a public dignitary, that is former interim mayor Vasile Ursu, signed and guaranteed things that do not match the reality, they are false, which is an offence. Moreover, under p.5.2 of the Contract, the tender commission obliges the owner of “Euro-TV” channel to make investments in the enterprise. An assessment commission, Roscovan says, is not empowered to oblige the buyer to do a thing or another. What is more, the commission was set up illegally, as it did not respect the decision of the Government that regulates the composition of tender commissions. In the cited source’s view, another point of the contract is “absolutely fraudulent”. As Roscovan says, in order to avoid responsibility for embezzlements of public patrimony, p.7.8 stipulates that the parties will be exempted from responsibility if conditions considered as “force majeure” would appear, including social or political riots, as well as strikes. Thus, the contract’s signers have completely ignored the opinion and fate of the two stations’ employees, who are mentioned neither as parties of the contract, nor as subjects of the employment contract, the councillor says. SAB leader says that the most serious is the fact that the contract stipulates to restore the enterprises if the contract is annulled. Resulting from this clause, the fate of the staffs is uncertain, as it is unknown how the CMC will act and if they will receive back the used property, as they are neither municipal enterprises nor public broadcasters. The interpellation’s signers have officially detached from the responsibilities for “these wrongdoings”, affirming that from the very start they were against the decisions they consider as misappropriation of public goods. Their position is not grounded on being in opposition but on the illegality of these decisions.