Communications Minister intervenes in conflict between publishers and Moldovan Post

The Ministry of Information Technologies and Communications demands a transparent and constructive cooperation between “Posta Moldovei” Company and the publishers, members of the Association of Independent Press (API). This comes in response to API’s petition to central authorities which accused the post company of enforcing abusive conditions for the distribution of newspapers and magazines. On Friday, a meeting to discuss this issue was called at the Ministry, Info-Prim Neo reports. According to a press release of the Ministry, the Administration Council of API demanded the cancellation of the “Posta Moldovei” decision to increase the fees for the distribution of newspapers and magazines from 1 January 2013. In turn, the company administration answered that even the increased fees didn’t fully cover the expenses. The fee increase for local papers will be 3-5 bani per unit and 10 bani for national newspapers. Thus, the fees will range from 40 bani to over 1 leu. “In 2012, the company will suffer uncovered losses of 21 bani per unit, an overall 3.2 million lei. The average wage of a postman, who walks tens of kilometers by foot, is 1067 lei, which isn’t enough for his work. “Considering this, we must revise the current fees, according to legal provisions”, said Ludmila Corceac, deputy director of “Posta Moldovei”. The press publishers explained that they weren’t against increasing the distribution fees, but wanted this measure to be argued and to be discussed with them and the quality of the service to be good. They say that the readers often receive their newspapers with delay. The representatives of the Moldovan Post Company demanded to be notified whenever such situations occur in order to deal with them and promised to fulfill their contractual obligations. Minister Pavel Filip listened to both sides’ arguments and recommended them to get off the barricades and sit at the negotiation table. He ordered the creation of work group containing representatives of both the company and the press publishers in order to examine the situation, the expense sheet for the distribution of newspapers and their coverage in order to reach a compromise.