Gagauz MPs threaten to block the rostrum of the Parliament in Chisinau. What is the reason
Local MPs from Gagauzia are threatening to block the central rostrum of the Parliament in Chisinau if the draft law establishing that economic agents in Gagauzia will be refunded VAT from the budget of the autonomy and not from the National Public Budget, as is currently the case, is not withdrawn. The deputies from Comrat also initiated a meeting to discuss this bill, but the PAS deputies in the Chisinau legislature did not accept the invitation.
At Monday's session, deputies of the Comrat People's Assembly approved a resolution calling on the Chisinau Parliament to withdraw the draft law, drafted by a group of deputies of the Action and Solidarity Party, which would leave Gagauz autonomy at risk of running out of half a billion lei over the next five years. At the same time, Nicolai Ormanji, deputy chairman of the region's legislature, urged the deputies to go to Chisinau to block the Parliament's rostrum when the bill is examined in plenary session.
"We know that this bill has been registered in Parliament, but it has not been discussed anywhere. If this draft is examined, I propose to the entire staff of the Parliamentary Assembly of Gagauzia to go to Parliament and block the rostrum. We see that a procedure is taking place to destroy the competences of the Autonomy and in the future we will most probably end up with the status of a simple district", said Nicolai Ormanji.
Comrat MPs want more autonomy, and such initiatives hinder discussions and harmonisation of relations between local elected representatives and parliamentarians in Chisinau, said the representative of the Bloc of Communists and Socialists, Grigore Novac on Radio Moldova's "360 degrees" programme. According to him, this initiative needs to be revised.
"This initiative now only hinders the not easy process of discussion and harmonisation. I look at it through the prism of relations. As timely as it is now, I personally feel that we will get stuck at this stage. It would probably be more appropriate for the Action and Solidarity Party to reconsider this idea or propose another formula. I see an already negative effect", Grigore Novac remarked.
Last week, the chairman of the parliamentary Committee on Economy, Budget and Finance, PAS MP Radu Marian, registered a draft law that would oblige the Autonomy to refund taxes and value-added taxes from the local budget, not the national one, as it is currently the case. The MP anticipates that, following the implementation of these legislative changes, savings of about 500 million lei will be accumulated in the next five years, money that could be invested in the development of other localities. Radu Marian believes that the refund of VAT from the state budget is not fair, and the draft law will bring more fairness in the relationship between the national budget and the budget of ATU Gagauzia. According to the MP, this provision was introduced in the law back in 2004, during the communist era.
