Municipal councilors argue about interim Mayor’s corruption charges

The municipal councilors react differently the declarations of the interim Mayor General of Chisinau, Vasile Ursu, regarding the corruption in the local public administration, and as well the lack of actions in this sense of the Chisinau Municipal Council, it is the conclusion of an analysis made by the reporter of the Info-Prim Neo News Agency. The independent councilor, Valeriu Musuc, supports the declarations of the Mayor, referring to the opinions of the Chisinau inhabitants who think that the corruption problems persist in the local public administration. More, he says that the municipal councilors attested several times corruption actions in the municipal structures. “Many times the problems of the simple Chisinau inhabitants’ are remaining unsolved, whilst in the city tens of houses and stores are “growing like mushrooms after rain”, says the councilor, being convinced that not all the decisions on the allocations of fields for luxurious edifices were examined by the Council. Musuc states that the councilors are not fighting corruption because it is impossible to break this vicious circle, created during many years. The quoted source considers that eradicating corruption in the local structures will be possible only after the local elections when an “amiable Mayor” will win and will create a team of honest specialists. He believes that changes are necessary to be made in the Regulations on the functioning of the local councils regarding the dismissal after the elections of all the chairmen of the subdivisions and employing them through the agency of a contest. The councilor of the Christian-Democrat Popular Party, Vera Mahu, who affirms that without proofs, Ursu has no right to make this kind of declarations against the civil servants who, she considers, are in majority of cases honest, professional and opened for collaboration. Vera Mahu was surprised that Ursu makes these declarations not only without proofs but also without informing the legal bodies and the Municipal Council. The communist councilor, Valeri Pavlov states that the level of corruption in the local administration diminished considerably during the last years. Though, he thinks the phenomenon persists in the activity of the microbus entrepreneurs and land system, inclusively by the fact that in the Municipal Council the councilors lobby some activities. Pavlov believes that in the justice area the situation is not better if no penal proceedings were finished on the behalf of municipal servants. Referring to the inactivity of the Council in this area, Pavlov declared that at the next meeting he will inform the councilors about the necessity of taking proper measures for finding out corrupt persons. The Councilor of the social-political Movement “Ravnopravie”, Valeri Climenko considers that the declarations Ursu made are not grounded in the case the interim Mayor has no proofs. Valeri Climenko declared for Info-Prim Neo, in the case Ursu has this kind of information he must offer it to the specialized bodies instead of blaming all the servants, having no proofs and no real names. Klimenko states that the example of blaming people and bringing ungrounded accusations was taken from the president Voronin. The councilor affirms that the head of state pretends not to observe that around him corruption grows, inclusively in the judicial system and at the Center for Fighting Economic Crimes and Corruption which subordinates directly to him. The independent councilor, Ion Mamaliga, said to the reporter of Info-Prim Neo that in the case the inhabitants of Chisinau speak about corruption acts in the local administration means something is messy. “Once suspicions exist, even without proofs, something must be urgently undertaken”, said Mamaliga. He thinks this is not the competence of the Municipal Council to solve this problem without being officially informed. “The council considered that these kinds of declarations are political and are some exaggerated declarations in which he did not want to involve, but now he is constrained by the situation to, because otherwise the blames will not end”, added Mamaliga. The councilor of “Moldova Noastra” Alliance, Constantin Pasecinic, affirms that the declarations made by Ursu are very serious and must be proved. He considers that the statesmen do not have the right to make this kind of declarations without the decision of the Court. At the same time the MNA councilor, referring to the Law of local public administration, states that only the representative body, as the Municipal Council is, has the right to make some conclusions on the grounds of the activity of some specialized commissions that include professionals. “If there are verified information about the corruption in the local administration and this information is known only by Ursu and not by the Municipal Council, it means that something is not working, otherwise why would the leadership of the country deal with the problems of Chisinau”, also said Constantin Pasecinic. Recently at the Mayoralty operative meeting and at the radio station Antena C, Vasile Ursu blamed of corruption several municipality structures, but also the tax collectors in the urban passenger transport, without giving names.