The Committee on Economic Policy continues its work

The meeting of the Committee on Economic Policy, Budget and Finance was held. Parliamentarians, together with representatives of the Government and city councils, continued work on the legislative initiative of the Government on amendments and additions to the Law of the PMR "On the Lease of State and Municipal Property". It is about providing an opportunity for local authorities to apply a reduction coefficient of no more than 0.5 for investment-unattractive (unclaimed) municipal property when renting it out.

A part of the municipal property is not in demand from tenants, and does not meet the requirements for such property. It requires significant financial costs for repairs. It is proposed in order to effectively use municipal property to use a reduction coefficient. It will attract additional tenants and, accordingly, both place additional social facilities and eliminate downtime of existing space.

The Committee deputies together with the invited ones in the course of the amendments discussion received for the second reading of the law-in-draft discussed who would determine the need to apply the reduction coefficient and in what amount. It was proposed to send it over to the Government administration. The local authorities did not agree with this position.

The head of the city Oleg Dovgopol said that potential tenants are not in demand and premises with a total area of about 27% of the total area of the municipal property of Tiraspol are empty.

The deputies of the Committee on Economic Policy, Budget and Finance agree with the position of the local authorities on this issue. However, they consider that the list of criteria by which an object will be recognized as unattractive for investment should be uniform for the whole republic.

The issue of shortfalls in local budgets was raised during the discussions, since rent is their revenue item. They noted that these revenues are planned without reducing coefficients, and we have subsidized areas. This also needs to be taken into account.

Following the discussion, the deputies of the Committee decided that they would recommend to the Supreme Council at the plenary session to adopt the law-in-draft, taking into account the amendment, which would consolidate the right of the Government to establish uniform criteria throughout Pridnestrovie, and local councils would already determine which of them to apply. The parliamentarians agreed with the proposal of the Bendery City Council that it is impossible to reduce the cost of rent to zero, but to provide an opportunity to lower the rent for investment unattractive (unclaimed) municipal property by a maximum of 50%. This will allow you to plan budget revenues. In addition, the relevant Committee proposed that changes to the law come into force on January 1, 2025 in order to exclude possible shortfalls in local budgets in 2024, as they are planned without taking into account the application of a reduction factor.

The parliament will consider the law-in-draft in the second final reading in the course of one of the next plenary sessions.