The members of the parliamentary group of the Party of Socialists will submit an application with four requests to Prime Minister Pavel Filip. The requests are: to reduce natural gas and electric power tariffs; to impose a moratorium on the rise in prices of basic necessities and public utilities, to carry out an audit at companies that have a monopoly on the heat and power markets and to design a plan for improving the work of these companies, IPN reports.
MP Vlad Batrîncea told a news conference that the government boasts of the rise in salaries, but an analysis of the average official pay in 2009 – 2017 shows that the average official salary eight years ago was US$335, but now is of only US$270. On the other hand, the gas and power tariffs rose about 2.5 times, while food prices increased even four times in some cases. “We speak about social genocide and a policy to continuously impoverish the population,” stated the MP, noting that a year ago the Socialists made a call to the Government, the National Anticorruption Center, the Prosecutor General’s Office and the National Agency for Energy Regulation to perform an audit, with the assistance of foreign experts, at public utility companies, but nothing was done.
Vlad Batrancea said the audit is needed to reveal the schemes by which the already impoverished population is imposed to pay twice more for gas. Moldovagaz purchases gas from Gazprom at the price of US$174 per 1,000 cubic meters and sells it to end-users for US$346 per 1,000 cubic meters. In the case of electricity, the tariff of about 2 lei is not justified and the end-users should pay a tariff of at most 1.50 lei. An external audit would reveal all the unjustified administrative and technical costs and would show that the tariffs are increased namely to cover these costs.
Socialist MP Vladimir Golovatiuc said the prices of goods and services are increased in an uncontrolled way and the Party of Socialists’ position is that the National Agency for Energy Regulation should reduce the gas tariff for the population as it is not normal for the people to pay twice more for the consumed gas.
