The members of the Congress of Local Authorities of Moldova (CALM) warn about inspections and criminal cases started by order and the use of the police as means of pressing representatives of the local public authorities. These gave the example of the mayor of Taraclia, who was put on probation and banned from holding public posts. The Congress asks the Supreme Council of Magistracy to verify the legality of the decision to dismiss mayor Sergey Filipov. The requests were included in a statement that was adopted in the extended meeting of the CALM Council on April 8, IPN reports.
The mayors also asked to immediately promulgate Law No. 2474, which allows the local public authorities of the first and second levels to change the purpose of land and to go to the Constitutional Court when the principles of self-government are violated. “Some of our colleagues from Parliament are not ready to accept the fact that in Moldova there is local administration that wants to help the MPs and the Government to advance things in the right direction. For the purpose, we need instruments,” said CALM executive director Viorel Furdui.
In the meeting, the mayors made a call for unity and solidarity so as to solve the problems faced by the local public authorities. “If they do not realize that we must be a whole – the central government and the local government – and if they do not turn their face to the local executive authorities, we, those who were elected by the people, will not be able to improve things in the country,” said the mayor of Straseni town Valentina Casian.
Among other problems mentioned by the CALM members was the vehement and inexplicable opposition by the Ministry of Transport and Road Infrastructure to the introduction of the tax on motor vehicles by the replacement of the current road tax. According to them, this way the villages and towns are deprived of any prospect and simple instrument of obtaining funds for the roads, as they do in other countries.
The Cahul Appeals Court suspended Sergey Filipov from the post of mayor of Taraclia town for two years. He was fined 8,000 lei and banned from holding public posts for a two-year period because he allowed felling down a number of trees in the square before the Taraclia mayor’s office.
