Mayor General Ion Ceban is proposing the organization of a local referendum through which the residents of the capital would express their views on two crucial issues for Chișinău:

1. Do the residents of Chișinău agree that schools should be taken over by the Government and/or, more specifically, by the Ministry of Education?
2. Do the residents of Chișinău agree that the boundaries of the municipality should be expanded to include additional localities beyond the current suburbs?

The mayor also explained what people should know about PAS’s intentions: “The abusive takeover of schools, the replacement of directors, the halting of all projects we have carried out in recent years in educational institutions, the promotion of propaganda without being hindered. Just as they have zero results in the country, they now want to destroy Chișinău as well,” he emphasized.

Ion Ceban added that with this change, PAS intends to reach into the pockets of Chișinău residents once again and extract more than 1.2 billion lei annually from the municipal budget.

“They want to reduce the personal income tax share from 50% to 45% — money that the City Hall invests in projects and programs. This is direct theft from the people,” the Mayor General stated.

According to Ion Ceban, PAS needs these fiscal changes to raise prices and to siphon funds from the municipal budget, since they have no other way to cover the state budget deficit, which he claims already amounts to 142 billion lei in debt.