“I agree with Prime Minister Vlad Filat when he says that decentralization does not mean the transfer of powers only from the central public authorities to the local ones, but also of responsibilities. I believe that most of my colleagues from the local public administration realize this,” the head of Dubasari district Grigore Polichinski said after an international conference themed “Decentralization Reform from Strategy to Actions”, Info-Prim Neo reports. Grigore Polichinski said that it’s not necessary to speak a lot about this transfer because it has been spoken enough for two years. The transfer should be done. In this connection, the head of Dubasari district expressed his regret that the conference was attended only by several ministers. “We wanted to speak to all the ministers about the cooperation mechanism in the transfer of powers. Maybe many of us do not have enough knowledge to manage them, but we are ready to learn. The Premier was right when he said that we should all feel the need to learn permanently. A plan should be agreed so as to specify who and what must do,” he stated. Mayor of Cioresti village of Nisporeni district Valeriu Gutu expects that decentralization will increase the efficiency of the local public administration in solving the problems faced by communities. “Currently, there are no stimuli for the local public authorities to increase the taxable base and to better manage the process of collecting local taxes. The decentralization will make the mayors to look for new incomes for the community budget,” he said. He also said that the territorial-administrative units must have incomes to cover the incurred costs and it should be thus specified how the mayor’s offices of the villages with a low number of inhabitants can cope with the responsibilities. “We must also think about merger. There are many things that should be tested. Consensus should be reached in implementing the decentralization reform,” stated Valeriu Gutu. According to Emilia Albu, mayor of Mereseuca, Ocnita, it is important that this decentralization reform be less painful and less costly for the population. “The closure of some schools created serious problems to parents, children and the local public authorities. Last year, I and a number of other female mayors paid a fact-finding visit to the Baltic Countries. The education reform is also done there, but they found another optimization method. They reduced teachers’ salaries, depending on the number of students, and didn’t close the schools. The parents in our country are also dissatisfied with the transportation of their children to other schools as they get tired,” she said. The conference was organized by the Government of Moldova with support from the UNDP, UN Women, UNICEF, the Embassy of Sweden, the Council of Europe and Soros Foundation Moldova. The event brought together 140 representatives of the central and local authorities, civil society and development partners as well as national and foreign experts.