Opposition parties criticize Govt's intention to buy electricity from Cuciurgan plant

“Because we now depend on the gas imported from Russia, if we accept this contract on delivering power from Cuciurgan, we shall depend 70% of the imported electricity on a company controlled by Russia,” Valeriu Cosarciuc, a deputy of Moldova Noastra Alliance (AMN) has told Info-Prim Neo. Starting with January 1, 2009, Moldova will be provided with electrical power prevalently from the Moldovan Power Plant from Cuciurgan, Tudor Copaci, the deputy minister of economy and trade stated on December 23. The contract signed by the Energocom company (an importer of electricity of the Moldovan Government, e. n.) with the power plant’s owner – the Russian state company RAO EES is valid till 2010. “The contract is not signed. The governance just intends to do this,” Valeriu Cosarciuc said. “This means that the present communist governance does not deal with ensuring the power security of Moldova, through developing its capacity of producing electric energy, but again searches solutions that are not good for us,” the parliamentarian said. “As long as the Transnistrian conflict is not solved, the Cuciurgan Power Plant in fact does not belong to Moldova, it belongs now to the Russian company RAO EES,” the AMN’s MP stated. Asked to comment the subject, leader of the Liberal Party Mihai Ghimpu stated that “the prosecutor’s office must realize that it is a serious encroachment and act, there is a law which bans it.” “I suppose there are financial interests, first, and this is another step of the Moldovan governance in the favor of Transnistria. Signing such a contract, the Government recognizes the illegalities which took place in Transnistria, including the illegal privatization,” Mihai Ghimpu said. “If somebody investigated the acts signed and recognized by Chisinau in relation with Tiraspol, we would see that our rulers works for Transnistria and in its favor,” the liberal leader said. In 2004, the Chisinau Parliament adopted a law, en force from January 1, 2005, through which it does not recognize the privatizations of companies from the eastern districts. However, this fact did not impede the regional authorities to sell them, and most of the investors are from Russia, as it is the case with the Cuciurgan Power Plant which is now the property of RAO EES. As to the law on unrecognizing the privatizations in the Transnistrian region, president Vladimir Voronin stated in March, in an interview for the Moscow publication Kommersant: “If these assets were legally privatized, there will be no problems even according to the Transnistrian laws. If the law was violated, we shall perform checks, certainly the Transnistrian bodies will do it. The law has already been abrogated. We shall not oblige the present owners to re-privatize the facilities and we won’t nationalize them.” This Law (no. 338 of 14.10.2004) is valid, according to the web portal of the State Register of Juridical Acts of Moldova, and in October, 2008 the Parliament modified it.