Preferential credits, a new war of veterans

The preferential credits offered to some socially-disadvantaged categories are, according to veterans of the war on Nistru River and of the participants to the liquidation of Chernobyl’s tragedy effects, “a dream requiring great efforts to come true”. According to the decision of the Government of the Republic of Moldova from October 2004, the II World War, Nistru and Afghanistan veterans, as well as the rehabilitated victims of political pressures have the right to take a credit of 82 thousand lei for purchasing or building living space and 25 thousand lei for repairing of dwellings, 50% reimbursed from the local budget. For the participants to the liquidation of Chernobyl’s tragedy effects, similar credits are paid back entirely from the local budget. The secretary of the Council of the Public Association “Chernobyl”, Gheorghe Goloman, told Info-Prim Neo that despite the normative act in force, receiving credits is a very difficult procedure for the mentioned-above categories. In order to obtain guarantee letters from local public authorities a huge amount of documents and effort are needed. Besides this, the guarantee letters are remitted only to the persons who stay in a line to receive homes, and after receiving the guarantee letters the persons are eliminated from this line. This fact is qualified by Goloman as inequitable because the sum of 82 thousand, of which a half must be paid back, is not equivalent to the sum needed for an apartment. On its turn, the bank solicits as well lots of documents, for which moral and material resources are needed. Solicited in the same context, the president of the Union of Veterans of the War for integrity and independence of the Republic of Moldova, Eduard Maican, declared that the difficulties while obtaining preferential credits increase together with the request of the Economy Bank imposed to the solicitants to pledge the sum that is not guaranteed by the local authorities. At the same time, the bank requires to the solicitants to prove that they have an income of 700 lei monthly for each member of the family and another 700 lei for paying back the credit. In this way, a family of 4 persons must prove that they have monthly at least 3500 lei, but the biggest part of veterans of the war on Nistru does not have such incomes, Maican states. He says that in order to receive a credit of 82 thousand lei, credit which is not covering even the 5th part of the cost of an apartment with 2 rooms, the veterans are forced to endorse through the dwellings of the relatives, beforehand, passed legally into their property. Maican reprove the Government for not including widows and children of those who were killed on the battlefield in the categories that have the possibility to ask for preferential credits. At the same time, he states that the other categories included in the administrative document are not confronting with so many impediments as the veterans of the war on Nistru do, and some local administration, as Dounduseni’s, decided to repay 50% of 50 thousand lei, not 82 thousand as it is stipulated in the Governmental decision. The communist MP, the president of the Association of the Participants to the Afghanistan War, Mihail Mocanu has another point of view. According to him, several problems that appeared initially were solved after “a meeting with the leadership of the Banca de Economii (BE)”. Taking all this into consideration, Mocanu believes that it would be correct that the solicitant pledges with the dwelling it will purchase or construct. At the same time, even if the Governmental decision refers to all banks, inclusively to the commercial banks, the only bank that offered preferential credits to more that 7000 “afghans” is Banca de Economii. Solicited by Info-Prim Neo, Marin Scarazanu, the head of the Creditinng department of BE, declared that all the credit must be confirmed through acts that will prove that the person is able of repaying the credit. He did not want to explain what methods are used when deciding on credits’ offering, suggesting to ask the bank’s leadership about this. The representatives of the biggest commercial banks, “Agroindbank” and “Victoriabank” declared to the reporter of the agency that they do not offer preferential credits, without offering any reasons. Solicited by Info-Prim Neo, the president of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Moldova (HCHRM), Stefan Uratu, declared that taking into consideration the big number credit solicitants’ complaints, it seems that this decision was remitted in order to offer somebody from outside Moldova, a report about the “care” for the socially-vulnerable categories of persons, hoping that a little part of them will issue these credits. More, the difficult process of credits’ giving facilitates corruption, says Stefan Uratu. In this way, the president of HCHRM says, a good idea was compromised and the solicitants are derided by the state for which they fought.