Gheorghe Pelin, the former general manager of the electric utility RED-Nord, says an Ukrainian firm whose founder is the Moldovan company Moldtranselectrica is trying to defraud the Moldovan government of $1.5 million. After numerous court procedures and then two years of silence, RED-Nord has been obliged to repay, for the second time, a debt of $1.5 million owed to a company called Energoalians, a debt which had been initially payed in 2001, Pelin told a news conference on Monday. In August 2000, Pelin decided to buy electricity from the Ukrainian company Energoalians, with a Moldovan company called Feren-M acting as mediator. Gherghe Pelin claims he purchased the electricity from abroad because the utility was in a dire situation and he was trying to avoid “a power collapse”. Consumers weren't paying their electrical bills and the utility became seriously indebted, he explained, until Energoalians took action in court, obliging the company to settle the debt. Gheorghe Pelin says the company eventually paid the debt owed to Energoalians through the mediator Feren-M. But the Ukrainian company alleged there were no documents to confirm it and sued the utility again. Shortly the mediator Feren-M went bankrupt, but Pelin says its director, Andrei Castravet, assured him the money had been delivered to Energoalians before the bankruptcy. “There are documents confirming that we paid the debt, it's just that Energoalians deliberately failed to produce those documents in court, so the judgment was not in favor of RED-Nord”, says Pelin. Pelin added Castravet was due to attend the news conference, but wasn't there for reasons unknown. Gheorghe Pelin suggests the intention in this dispute is to defraud the Moldovan government, so he intends to appeal to the new justice minister, Alexandru Tanase, and to the yet-to-be-appointed prosecutor general. According to Pelin, Energoalians is a “ghost firm, set up to milk money”, which was originally owned by an Ukrainian company and Moldtranselectica, in a 70:30 proportion. The Moldovan company eventually took full charge of the venture after its Ukrainian companion was liquidated. RED-Nord and Moldtranselectrica are both electric utilities with government ownership.