The gas tariffs should have been cut by about 16% following the revision by the National Agency for Energy Regulation (NAER), not by only 10.9% as it was decided, a group of energy experts said in a news conference at IPN. The experts accused the Agency of not ensuring transparency in the revision process and of serving political interests.
Sergiu Tofilat said the NAER adopted the tariff reduction decision in a meeting held behind closed doors, invoking the urgency of the matter. But the legislation provides that the exceptional meetings are held in emergencies that are set by the competent bodies, not the Agency. Experts’ calculations show the tariffs should have been decreased more and they will thus ask that the Agency’s administration should hold public consultations on the matter. They will also notify the Prosecutor General’s Office of the actions of the NAER’s Board of Directors and will ask Parliament to hold hearings on the setting of gas tariffs.
Expert Victor Parlicov, who is a former NAER director, said the legislation stipulates that public consultations must be held namely with the aim of eliminating any doubt about the taken decisions. As regards the gas tariffs, the purchase price decreased by about 700 lei per 1,000 cubic meters and then by another 300 lei per 1,000 cubic meters, following the annulment of an amendment by Parliament. Thus, the final tariff should have been by about 1,000 lei lower, not by only 600 lei per 1,000 cubic meters lower.
Expert Sergiu Ungureanu said that they should have long ago changed the method of paying for gas in Moldova so that it took into account the quality of gas, not only the consumed volume. The end-users in Moldova do not know the actual quality of the consumed gas and often complain about the weak energy power of the gas.
The experts said that earlier Prime Minister Pavel Filip had discussions with representatives of Moldova-Gaz and later told the press that the gas tariff will be reduced by about 11%. In a week, the NAER adopted a 10.9% decrease in the tariff. In such conditions, it is evident that the Agency is ‘politically captured’ and the calculations are done not by the Agency, but by the politicians who actually manage it.
Given the aforementioned reasons and in order to promote the ‘freeing of the Agency from political captivity’ at international level, the experts will file an application to the secretariat of the Energy Community so as to inform it about the activity of the NAER.
