Moldovan lawmakers make amendments to more acts concerning water, sewerage supply sector

Chisinau, 28 March /MOLDPRES/ - The MPs, at a today’s plenary meeting, considered a draft law which implies the amendment of normative acts which regard the improvement of the governance and regulation of the water and sewerage supply sector.    

Under the document, the MPs propose the introduction of the notion of area of operation, which represents the geographical area which comprises the administrative and territorial unit in which the operator gets the right to provide the public service of supply with water and sewerage, based on the delegated management contract.   

Also, amendments are made, in order to remove the differentiated approach between the operators which provide services of supply with water and sewerage at the level of district, municipality, city and those who work at the level of village or commune. Thus, the MPs propose the inclusion of a compulsory licencing for all operators which serve more than 3,000 consumers. At the same time, the local public administration authorities from the settlements which have more than 1,000 consumers will be able to gradually delegate the services only to one licenced operator.          

The document also provides for the inclusion of the compulsory criterion or ensuring the quality of the drinking water, with confirmatory certificates due to be presented. The National Energy Regulatory Agency will be in charge of the approval of tariffs both for the holders of licences and for the operators which do not have licences.  

Another provision regards the fact that the public administration authorities will be able to establish a quota of development in the structure of the tariff for service. It will be used for the modernization and construction of the infrastructure related to the public service of water and sewerage supply.  

The draft also envisages that decision-makers will establish a mechanism of authorization, construction, registration, control, exploitation and maintenance of the individual systems of collection and purification of residual waters in the rural settlements. This will allow fully covering the needs of water and sewerage in all regions, no matter their geographical or demographic configuration.