The Chisinau Mayor's office has given a number of clarifications regarding the application of the local fee for sanitary cleaning.
The clarifications came in response to accusations by the Action and Solidarity Party (PAS) that this local levy was approved in a non-transparent way and was imposed by General Mayor Ion Ceban for personal purposes. PAS representatives in the municipal council, during a briefing on Tuesday, demanded that the municipal fee be cancelled. Chisinau Mayor's office, in turn, said that the fee for sanitary cleaning in the amount of 10 lei per month was approved by municipal councilors 2 years ago, but due to bureaucratic delays at the central level, its application was postponed until this year. Sending notifications to some persons of retirement age is connected with an error that arose through the fault of the Agency for Public Services and Information Technologies. Citizens of retirement age, as well as persons with disabilities and children under 18 are exempt from paying this fee. The mayor's office emphasized that the annual expenses of municipal services for sanitary cleaning amount to more than 300 million lei per year. They are spent on maintenance of green spaces, maintenance of roads and bridges, snow removal, cleaning of storm drains, etc. At the same time, the fee for sanitary cleaning and other fees paid by the residents of the city come in the amount of about 50 million lei per year. The mayor's office emphasized that the local fee for sanitary cleaning has been provided for in the Tax Code since 2014, and in many localities it is applied, reaching up to 144 lei per year. Chisinau Mayor Ion Ceban said that the potential approval by the municipal council of a new decision to abolish this fee would be illegal, since the parameters of the local budget have been approved and cannot be adjusted at this stage. “There is no legal mechanism for refunding or abolishing this fee,” said Ion Ceban, stressing that today Chisinau is one of the cleanest European capitals. According to the mayor's office, a local fee of 120 lei is paid once a year, and the collected funds will be used for cleaning streets and public places, installing and cleaning street garbage containers, maintaining urban furniture, mowing lawns, phytosanitary treatment, snow removal, disinfection etc. // 20.06.2023 — InfoMarket
