The Chisinau City Council has approved the temporary tariffs of Apă-Canal Chișinău (ACC) for water supply and sewerage services for domestic and non-domestic consumers.
The decision was adopted at a Municipal Council meeting on Friday by the votes of 26 out of 51 councilors. The tariffs were set temporarily, pending ANRE opinion. Particularly, for domestic consumers, the ACC tariff for the public potable water supply service has been increased from 8.65 to 16.32 lei per cubic meter, and the tariff for the sewerage and wastewater treatment service - from 2.04 to 6.62 lei per cubic meter. At the same time, for non-household consumers the tariff for the public drinking water supply service has increased from 13.29 to 16.32 lei per cubic meter, and for the sewerage service has decreased- from 11.17 to 10.26 lei per cubic meter. Thus, the final tariff for water supply and sewerage for the population will increase from the current 10.69 to 22.94 lei per cubic meter (2.1 rise), and for non-household consumers - from 24.46 to 26.56 lei (+8.6%). Water supply to residential consumers is not subject to VAT, while to non-domestic consumers - at the standard rate. Let us remind that the Municipal Council could not reach a consensus on increasing the tariffs for Apă-Canal Chișinău services several times because the company has existing loan obligations to international financial institutions (EBRD and EIB), therefore, the tariffs must be approved by ANRE. In order to be able to approve the tariffs, at the beginning of November, the City Council approved the decision to transfer the debt on loans to the Chisinau Mayor's Office, without ANRE's opinion. However, ANRE criticized these decisions, urging not to politicize the tariff approval process and to respect the legislation. As InfoMarket agency earlier reported, the necessity to increase the current tariffs was explained by their irrelevance (especially now, when tariffs for electric energy, natural gas, etc. have considerably increased), deterioration of networks, debts and credit commitments of the enterprise. Updating of tariffs is expected to ensure stability of service delivery to consumers. It is worth mentioning that the last time Apă-Canal Chișinău changed its tariffs in 2017, and before that - in 2009. // 25.11.2022 - InfoMarket.
