Olga Ursu: The government no longer transfers money to the Town Halls

Deputy Mayor Olga Ursu made strong statements about the situation of paying salaries for personal assistants in Chisinau City Hall, accusing the government of not transferring any leu for five months, which forced the City Hall to cover these payments from its own funds.

Ursu emphasized that over two thousand people have not received their salaries, and the situation is even more alarming in other local public administrations in the country.

“I want to tell you that for 5 months Chisinau City Hall has been paying these salaries from its own funds, because not a single leu was transferred for five months from the state budget, which is actually an obligation of the budget, to money is transferred monthly for these people”, said Deputy Mayor Ursu.

The deputy mayor pointed out that Chisinau City Hall made several requests and sent letters to the government in an attempt to obtain the transfer of money, but did not receive a clear answer in this regard. Moreover, he accused the government of increasing the salaries of ministers up to 50 thousand lei, while forgetting to pay the salaries of personal assistants.

“You increased the salaries of ministers up to 50 thousand lei, but you forgot about the payment of salaries and every salary for personal assistants. 1300 lei that you increased for each official, you also put them on the account of the APLs. Chisinau City Hall has to pay 158 million lei just for this purpose,” added Ursu.

The deputy mayor continued with other financial problems facing the Chisinau City Hall, including blocking the approval of investment loans and investments in the suburbs, directly affecting the reopening of schools and kindergartens on time.

“We have the situation with the suburbs of Chisinau. Every year, the municipality of Chisinau allocates investment money for investment projects in the suburbs. This year, the situation is different because the State Chancellery has notified seven suburbs, seven provisions for the allocation of money for the suburbs, citing reasons that, in fact, are not provided for by the legal framework”, explained Ursu.

She also stated that several meetings were organized with the State Chancellery and requests were made to withdraw the notifications to allow the City Hall to invest the money planned in the suburbs for the necessary repairs to schools and kindergartens. However, to date, no clear answer has been received.

Finally, the deputy mayor announced that an online petition would be launched and actions would be organized in every suburb to inform and mobilize people about the investment block.

“Through this petition, people will find out and understand that in fact it is not the town hall that is blocking investments in the suburbs, but it is the State Chancellery at the moment, which notified these suburbs without having a legal basis”, concluded Deputy Mayor Ursu.

In the context of financial difficulties and administrative blockage, Chisinau City Hall is looking for solutions to overcome these problems and to ensure the payment of personal assistants’ salaries and the implementation of planned investments in the suburbs before the reopening of schools and kindergartens on September 1.