New regulation to be worked out for National Ecological Fund of Moldova
15:55 | 11.10.2019 Category: Social
Chisinau, 11 October /MOLDPRES/ - The National Ecological Fund (FEN) needs a new regulation, which will be worked out in the near future and projects will be financed depending on priorities and number of beneficiaries, without taking into account the mayoralties’ political affiliation. Agriculture, Regional Development and Environment Minister Georgeta Mincu made statements to this effect at a today’s news conference on FEN programmes financed in 2018.
The minister said that, in late last June, 297 projects had been submitted to the National Ecological Fund, of which almost 80 per cent were providing for actions on supply with water, sanitation, purification of residual waters and in a much lower proportion – on monitoring, security of the environment, developing the biodiversity, etc.
„The projects represent a budget of almost 300 million lei, with obligations under grant contracts, estimated at about 550 million lei. Yet, a string of challenges have been identified in this context,” Georgeta Mincu said.
According to the official, “most projects were seeing financing under contracts which were expired or could no longer be accessed for the carrying out of needed works. At the same time, within some projects, beneficiaries’ contribution was lacking.” In this context, the minister asked the mayors who submitted projects to FEN to appeal to the Agriculture, Regional Development and Environment Ministry, in order to make grant contracts and extend their validity period.
„At present, FEN has an available balance of only 178 million lei, which means that all beneficiaries must make proper order with their acts,” Mincu said.
The minister specified that the Ecological Fund did not have a clear legal framework, or, to improve the situation, a new regulation of FEN will be elaborated.
Georgeta Mincu informed that five new projects had been included at a 10 October meeting of the Fund. They are provided for supplying national greening companies, inventorying of the deposits from Moldova, which has not been done ever since the 1970s, for developing the Orhei National Park, strengthening the dam from the waste deposit of Tantareni, etc.
The National Ecological Fund was created under Cabinet Decision in 1998, in order to collect additional money to finance activities in the environment sector. The local public administration bodies, institutions, enterprises, social society’s organizations of Moldova can benefit from grants.
