The chairman of the Public Association “Consumer Protection” Piotr Guțul said the judicial system of Moldova ignores the law on consumer protection. During 19 years of its founding, the Association received 15,000 to 20,000 applications from consumers whose rights were violated, but not many of them went to court. The people avoid becoming involved in disputes with state institutions because they do not have possibilities or because they do not trust that they will win.
In a news conference hosted by IPN, Piotr Guțul said the heat supplier Termoelectrica does not respect the law. “Everyone should have a meter that would measure heat consumption and one more meter for hot water. These meters stipulated by law are not installed and the law is this way violated. Two years ago, I asked the then prosecutor general Alexandr Stoianoglo to order examinations. No prosecutor so far provided any answer to me,” he stated.
Efima Morari, a dweller of an apartment building situated in Chisinau, said that she often went to the head of the dwellers’ association and to Termoelectrica. Even if her apartment was disconnected from the centralized heating system, she continues to receive heat bills and the debt rose to 7,000 lei. Neither the National Agency for Energy Regulation solved her problem. The institution argued it does not have such duties.
Another citizen of Chisinau, Ksenia Rachenko, complained that the apartment building in which she leaves is close to go to ruin because ventilators were installed in the basement of the block without the dwellers’ consent. Ventilators were also set up in a drugstore located on the first floor. The life and health of the people are affected. Noise is heard in their apartments and the floors and plastering have been damaged.
The Public Association “Consumer Protection” encourages the people to take to the streets and to demand that the senior administration should resign. According to the Association’s chairman Piotr Guțul, despite the commitments to reform the justice sector and fight corruption that were undertaken by the country’s administration, the consumers are not protected by the justice system and the state.
Note: The conference forms part of the series of conferences held as part of IPN News Agency’s project “Support for the Justice Reform through multimedia coverage of cases of alleged injustice”. The Agency does not bear responsibility for the public statements made in the public sphere by the organizers of news conferences. IPN News Agency gives the right of reply to persons who consider they were touched by the news items produced based on statements of the organizers of the given news conference, including by facilitating the organization of another news conference in similar conditions.
