Slusari: Mayors Still Have to “Kiss the Hands” of Central Authorities for Funding

Former MP and current member of the Supervisory Board of Energocom, Alexandru Slusari, criticized the way the government manages its relations with local public administrations. In his post, he described the recent meetings between the Minister of Infrastructure and Regional Development and the country’s mayors as a revival of practices from the Voronin era, reports stiri.md. “I watch these meetings with deep disgust. Nothing has changed. A narrow group of officials in the center decides who gets the money, while mayors – some serving their 3rd or even 5th term – are once again forced to switch their political hats just to secure at least some funding for their communities,” Slusari wrote on Facebook. He recalls that in 2019, decentralization was one of the shared priorities of the ACUM bloc, but “the current government, fully controlled by a single party, has failed this reform.” According to Slusari, no steps have been taken to reallocate taxes to local budgets, to implement administrative-territorial reform, or to encourage cooperation between localities – a model that has been successfully applied in Romania. “The second biggest mistake of the PAS government, after their mockery of the economy, is the lack of decentralization reform. Moldova ratified the European Charter of Local Self-Government back in 1997, yet the practice remains the same: mayors have to kiss the hands of those in the center in exchange for funding promises,” Slusari wrote. The former MP argues that the current system, based on excessive centralization, is ineffective and that ignoring decentralization reform keeps the Republic of Moldova far from the European standards so often referenced in official speeches.