Three Gagauzian municipalities – Congaz, Cotovscoe and Chioselia Rusă - have for the first time ever launched a joint public utilities company, aiming to provide a wide range of local communal service: garbage collection, roads maintenance, snow removal, public lighting and administration of water and sewerage systems.

“Up to now we have succeeded to implement several modernization assignments, but through this project we are advancing to a better-quality and bigger-quantity intensity. Since today, we are proficient to deliver supplementary and advanced services to our citizens, related to water, sanitation, roads maintenance and street lighting.  This will ensure the sustainability of the already implemented infrastructural projects, but also the rational use of resources held by the partner mayoralties of this project”, the mayor of Congaz, Constantin Telpiz, said within the launching event of the new inter-municipal utility company”.

During the event, held today in the village of Congaz, the director of the company has virtually confirmed the ground-breaking methods that are applied for a more efficient management local utility management. As a result, 3 municipalities and more than 15,000 inhabitants are benefiting from more qualitative services of garbage collection, snow removal, road maintenance and street lighting, water supply development and maintenance etc.

“Congaz is not only the largest village in Moldova, but also in Europe, and the creation herein of the fist inter-municipal company of this kind is not only symbolic, but also logic, because it serves as an example for all the localities from ATU Gagauzia and from all over Moldova. Being an example to be followed means, first of all, having a developed infrastructure, which ensures a better quality of people's lives – the most important element in the local authorities’ activity”, the Deputy Resident Representative of UNDP Moldova, Narine Sahakyan, said.

Victoria Cujba, the Head of the Decentralization Policy Division of the State Chancellery, stated that the country's changing process begins at local level and requires the involvement of both local authorities and citizens. “For the inhabitants of such small communities, like Cotovscoe and Chioselia Rusa, this is the only viable solution to receive some high quality services. It is worth mentioning that 86% from the localities of Moldova have less than 5000 inhabitants. Such inter-municipal cooperation models contribute to the modernization of the country, while the ecology becomes an imperative, and the citizen satisfaction a top priority. The Government and the development partners support and encourage the development of Moldova on this path”, Victoria Cujba declared.

The total amount of grants provided for this type of project is 1 million USD, aiming to support 40 municipalities and over 120,000 Moldovan citizens to improve their service delivery in accordance with the provisions of National Decentralization Strategy.  The project is implemented by the Joint Integrated Local Development Programme (JILDP) with the UNDP and UN Women assistance as well as with the financial support of the Government of Denmark.