Members of Parliament from the Environment and Regional Development Commission and advisors of the Parliament of the Republic of Moldova are monitoring the implementation of state policies in the field of regional development and protection of the environment. In this context, they carried out on Wednesday, 28 February a number of visits in the South Development Region. The event was organised with the support of ‘Modernisation of Local Public Services in the Republic of Moldova’ (MLPS) project, implemented by the German Development Cooperation through GIZ.
Members of parliamentary delegation expressed, thus, their intention of facilitating the dialogue with regional and local institutions, identifying development related challenges at regional level and optimising the efforts of state institutions at all levels to support fair and balanced development throughout the territory of the Republic of Moldova.
The visit started with a trip to one of the road arteries constructed by South RDA in 2013 under and investment project financed from the National Fund for Regional Development sources – the Codreni-Sagaidacul Nou road from Cimislia rayon.
On site, the South RDA director Maria Culesov and the mayor of Porumbrei village Ioana Stoica as direct beneficiary of this project informed the officials that, as a result of implementing this project 4,84 km of macadam road was built allowing for connection of L580 road to national route M3. Thus, the final beneficiaries’ access to route M3 was ensured and the access of travellers and goods to and from 13 villages of Cimislia and Basarabeasca rayons was improved.
Drinking water pumping station from Ecaterinovca commune, Cimislia rayon was the next facility visited by the members of the Environment and Regional Development Parliamentary Commission. It was constructed under the ‘Major repair of sewage system, pumping stations and water treatment plant from Cimislia town; construction of sewage systems, pumping stations and reconstruction of water supply systems in Ecaterinovca village’ project. For Ecaterinovca commune, the project provided for the full construction of water supply and sewage system. 9,5 km of water networks and 7,4 km of sewage, as well as 2 pumping stations were constructed, thus solving the issue of water supply and sewage services for 1134 inhabitants of this commune.
Further, the members of the Parliament headed to South Regional Development Agency (RDA) where they discussed the achievements and development perspective in priority regional development sectors with the Agency’s staff. In this context, South RDA director, Maria Culesov, presented the information on the particularity of Agency activity and the most important results obtained in the regional development field in the South of Moldova during 2011-2017.
Also, the South RDA director told the members of Parliament that in 2017 South RDA has implemented 5 projects financed from the National Fund for Regional Development (NFRD). The total cost of these projects is around MDL 40.6 million. For the current year MDL 31.2 million were allocated for the implementation of 7 regional development projects in the South Region. In addition, Maria Culesov mentioned that the Agency implements projects, also, with external funding.
Moreover, South RDA director has spoken about the needs of the South Regional Development Agency in achieving the objective set for the next years concerning balanced and sustainable development. Similarly, the members of Parliament found out about the challenges the Agency is facing in project implementation. In this respect, the head of the main project implementation institution made a request that the high-level officials get involved as legislators in the solving of stringent problems concerning the allocations made from the state budget to NFRD increasing them from 1% to 2-3%.
In the afternoon of the same day, the members of the parliamentary commission made monitoring visits to other several regional development projects implemented by South RDA in Causeni rayon. First visit was made to the project ‘Access road to the memorial museum ‘Alexei Mateevici’ from Zaim village in Causeni rayon’, where the mayor of the village Ion Veste told the members of the Parliament about this important investment from NFRD for localities.
After that, the elected representatives had the opportunity to visit the biggest multifunctional sports complex in the country – the Youth and Sports Centre in Causeni. This facility was constructed under the regional project ‘Consolidation of regional cooperation between Causeni, Cimislia, Stefan Voda rayons, increasing competitiveness in promoting healthy lifestyle, preparing top-level sportsmen and providing sports tourism services by putting in place the Youth and Sports Centre in Causeni town’. It was funded from the National Fund for Regional Development and from the budget of Causeni rayon and implemented by the South Regional Agency.
Together with the local public authorities of Causeni rayon, the members of the Environment and Regional Development Commission visited the work site of the project ‘Construction of sewage system in the Valul lui Traian sector and modernization of wastewater treatment plant from Causeni town’, under implementation since 2017 with NFRD support.
Speaking about the impact of the investments the Causeni rayon is benefiting from currently thanks to the allocations from the National Fund for Regional Development, Nicolae Gorban, the president of Causeni rayon pointed out the major importance of the project, as it would consequently lead to the improvement of service infrastructure, quality of environment and citizens living conditions.
The Members were accompanied by Eduard Ungureanu, head of Section for Relations with Regional Development Institutions from the Ministry of Agriculture, Regional Development and Environment, representatives of the ‘Modernisation of Local Public Services in the Republic of Moldova’ (MLPS) project, DFID experts and advisors of the Parliament.
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The project ‘Modernization of Local Public Services in the Republic of Moldova’ (MLPS) is implemented by the German Development Cooperation through GIZ in partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture, Regional Development and Environment and is financially supported by the German Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the European Union, the Romanian Government, the Swedish Government and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).
