
Moldovan government will allocate over 1 billion lei to pay compensations related to the increase in gas tariffs; the compensation mechanism is to be approved on November 10.
The chairman of the parliamentary commission for social protection, health care and family Dan Perciun announced this while speaking on the air of the program Punctul pe Azi on TVR Moldova. According to him, part of the money allocated for compensation will be taken from a grant of 60 million euros, provided by the European Union to support the most vulnerable citizens during the heating season. In addition, other budgetary funds will be found for these purposes. It is planned that the mechanism for providing compensation will be approved by the government on November 10. “There are two separate mechanisms: a mechanism for supporting low-income citizens - assistance for the cold season. Its total volume will be increased and the number of families eligible for this assistance will increase. The matter concerns hundreds of thousands of families. Secondly, the matter concerns the direct compensation of accounts, regardless of income, but depending on the volumes consumed. The compensation will be differentiated, depending on the consumed volume of gas: for the first 50 cubic meters it will be higher, and for volumes exceeding 50 cubic meters, the compensation will be less. We would of course like to differentiate this compensation in the income account. But, unfortunately, the Moldovagaz database, existing information systems do not allow for such detailing to know exactly what is happening in the apartment consuming up to 50 cubic meters of gas, whether the people living there have an income of 30 thousand lei per person per month. We will not be able to obtain such data in this short time, this winter we will go for this option. This is the situation at the moment; it makes no sense to say that it is very good. It is complex, and in most countries it is also a very difficult situation as a result of such an increase in gas prices on the international market. The optimistic forecast is that the market will correct in 4-5 months as the gas production capacity increases, the situation stabilizes, normalizes and even our purchase price will decrease, which will also further reduce the gas tariff for end consumers," said Dan Perciun. At the same time, he said that there will be no increase in electricity tariffs in the coming months, because the contract for the supply of electricity from the Moldovan HPP has a fixed price until March next year, and, accordingly, one should not expect an increase in its cost during this period. // 09.11.2021 – InfoMarket