Not a single district council of Moldova has approved a road maintenance strategy, and the registration of road signs and objects is not kept according to the established rules.
These are the results of the audit conducted by the Accounts Chamber of the conformity of the use by autonomous territorial units (ATU) of budget transfers for special purposes for the road infrastructure. The Accounts Chamber auditors identified numerous shortcomings in the use of public funds by ATUs for road infrastructure, inconsistencies in the planning of programs in the field of road maintenance and repair, as well as public procurement and monitoring of work performed, violations in the field of reporting, etc. According to the report, local and central authorities do not have reliable information about the length, condition and quality of streets and roads of local and regional significance. The district authorities do not have a generalized database of all objects - there are no technical passports and technical assessment reports, sheets of fixed assets and other data. The auditors emphasized that an important element of the country's road infrastructure management is the Road Maintenance Strategy, which would make it possible to correctly plan activities in this area, but no district council has approved such a strategy. Violations were revealed in the implementation of public procurement. For example, in 5 district councils, the purchase of services was carried out instead of the purchase of works on the maintenance and repair of roads. This misled the tenderers, and the multimillion-dollar contracts were awarded inappropriately. Also, the terms of the warranty period for each contract were violated, and the final delivery of objects was carried out formally, without observing all the requirements for paperwork and monitoring of work performed. The district councils did not register ownership rights to 3.5 thousand km of roads in the Real Estate Register. Also, accounting for 69 bridges and 839 bridges, 133 pavilions, almost 2.2 thousand road signs and more than 61 thousand roadside plants is not provided. ATUs as road administrators did not keep track of all signs and devices. It turned out that in 2019-2020 8 district councils and one mayor's office spent 0.8 million lei on the renewal of road signs, while they did not have documentation on the destruction / theft, as well as on the installation of signs on new road sections. At the same time, there are no sign placement schemes attached to the documentation. According to the legislation, ATUs on I level receive funds for the maintenance of road infrastructure and streets, based on the number of residents, and also receive 50% of the tax for the use of roads by unregistered vehicles in Moldova. Expenditures on road infrastructure in 2020 amounted to 988.6 million lei, which is 33 million lei less than allocated. Of these, 20.7% of funds were used by ATU level II in Gagazia, Chisinau and Balti municipalities, 51.6% of funds were transferred to regional budgets, and 27.7% - to rural mayoralties. The total expenditures on the road sector last year amounted to 2 billion lei, of which almost 66% are current expenditures. // 21.07.2021 — InfoMarket
