Mayor General of Chisinau Dorin Chirtoaca is satisfied with the way in which the City Hall’s services have cleared the main streets of snow, but says that more specialised units are needed in order to work more efficiently on the secondary streets and access roads to quarters. According to the mayor, the Chisinau Municipal Council (CMC) will consider the possibility of acquiring snow removing vehicles this year. At the City Hall’s meeting on January 14, the head of the Public Transport and Communication Ways Division Veaceslav Tarna said that according to the present norms, the municipality of Chisinau should have 619 specialised road cleaning vehicles, but it has only 88. There are over 1,000 streets in the capital city, but the “Exdrupo” division does not have the necessary machinery to ensure access to every building, says Tarna. The head of Centru district Vladimir Sarban said that there are many problems related to snow removal and sanitation in Chisinau and the residents’ reaction is normal. According to him, if the snow removing equipment can be renewed or repaired, the lack of sanitation workers is a serious problem confronting the local authorities. The Centru district alone experiences a shortage of 185 persons. The situation in the other districts of the municipality is much the same, Sarban said. "A new price rate for servicing blocks of flats has been approved and I think the inhabitants will not understand us if the number of employees that clean up the areas around the blocks remains the same,” Sarban said. He also said that the officials in charge should submit proposals to the CMC to modify the pay grades for sanitation workers because the current salaries are not at all attractive. In this connection, the mayor general said that since the charge for servicing apartment buildings has been approved, this is the task of the General Housing-Communal Division. He asked the deputy mayor responsible for the domain Igor Lupulciuc to work out a timetable for the municipal services and the enterprises managing the housing sector in compliance with the decision regarding the increase in the block service charge.