The Chisinau Municipal Council was short of only one ballot and thus failed to fire Mihai Furtuna as Acting Chisinau Mayor today.

It was the Communist Party faction's initiative to do away with Furtuna. The Communists voted no confidence in him, claiming that Deputy Mayor Furtuna had falsified Municipal Council's decisions on allocating financial assistance to some categories of citizens, and had misappropriated a part of the money.

Vitalie Sacara of the MCP faction stated, "Furtuna, in charge of the Municipality's finances, ignored the Council's decisions. During more than a decade of holding various posts at the City Hall, Mihai Furtuna has failed to justify the public trust in him. That applies not to him alone, but to many other municipal officials".

The Communist faction's opinion on promoting new, young and much-promising municipal executives found support by some councilors from the Moldova Noastra Alliance faction. One of them, Igor Krapivka, said, "It's a pity this motion failed to be proposed by my faction. This should have been our initiative. No matter the cat's color, the chief thing is the cat must catch mice. The cat governing the Chisinau Municipality now fails to cope with his duties".

As the Furtuna dismissal did not come out straightaway, the councilors voted for establishing an ad hoc commission that will scrutinize the situation and determine to which extent accusations against Mihai Furtuna are valid. The Furtuna question will be considered again at the Municipal Council's next meeting.

By a majority of votes, the Chisinau Municipal Council today dismissed Svetlana Myslitskaya - Director of the Municipal Department of Housing and Territory Development, and Tudor Lazari -- Director of the Legal Department. That was done by initiative of the Communist faction which claimed the two had been inefficient.

Despite desperate efforts, Myslitskaya succeeded in putting in a word of self-defense only after the voting had been over. She stated that before the Council sitting, nobody even hinted that the councilors were going to debate firing her.

"My Department used to fulfill all the Council's decisions. It is impossible to solve all the housing sector's problems in one day, and my dismissal will not better the situation. Any work is done by a big team of people, not only by its leader", Myslitskaya said. "None of you [the councilors] has ever visited the Department to see how we work. This is but a political provocation. Last December, I was about to tender resignation, but felt I had no right to abandon housing problems the way they were. So now regard your decision to dismiss me as one that came from myself", she said.

Acting Mayor Mihai Furtuna stated at the session that the Director of the Legal Department, Tudor Lazar, had applied for an annual leave and for a subsequent resignation as from May 27. However, the majority in the Municipal Council preferred to part with the Municipality's chief lawyer in no other way but by firing him.

The Chisinau Municipal Council today refrained from debating the question of raising fares at public transport in the capital city, saying the issue requires further scrutiny in factions.

The Municipal Transport Department has long been demanding to raise the fare charged in trolleybuses up to 1 lei from the current 0.75 lei, in buses - up to 2 lei (currently 1.25 lei), and in route taxi to 3 lei (currently 2).

Department Director Vyacheslav Tarna stated that due to the underrated fares, the municipal public transport has been long suffering huge losses, and, accordingly, is not able to develop. For this year, for instance, the municipal trolleybus company can expect maximum 91 million lei of subsidies from the municipal budget - only 73 percent of its actual minimal needs, and the bus company - maximum 30 million lei, or 68% real needs.

As for route taxi minibuses, their current fare was approved yet in 2000, when 1 liter of gasoline and diesel used to cost 3.2 to 3.6 lei. Presently, their prices have soared up to 7.8-8.2 lei/liter.

Currently, the cost of carrying one passenger by trolleybus is 1.15 lei, and by bus - 3.45 lei, against 0.8 and 2.5 lei, respectively, in 2004.