Today, the Minister of Regional Development and Construction, Vasile Bitca, and Jonathan Hecke, Project Coordinator within the Swiss Water and Sanitation Project (ApaSan) in Moldova mapped priority development objectives and identified potential joint projects at an official meeting held at the Ministry.
‘Pursuant to the legislation, to implement regional development projects several sources of funding may be attracted, a priority being achievement of regional development objectives. In the context of the Call of proposals for selection of projects to be funded by the National Fund for Regional Development (NFRD) in the next three years and of the first phase of the Call of proposals that has been completed, we talked with Jonathan Hecke about effective cooperation for implementation of water supply and sanitation joint projects’, Vasile Bitca, the Minister of Regional Development and Construction, emphasized.
In his turn, Jonathan Hecke, Project Coordinator within the Swiss Water and Sanitation Project made clear that ApaSan Project provides co-funding and joint implementation of investment projects in water supply and sanitation infrastructure. Jonathan Hecke, also, said that according to the Memorandum of Understanding, 10% of the total amount is the contribution of potential beneficiaries (local public authorities level I and II), 45 % is ApaSan contribution and the other 45% will be contributed by the Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Regional Development and Construction through national funds these two manage.
According to Minister Vasile Bitca, at the meeting the possibilities of participation in the project of local public authorities with a non-financial contribution were discussed.
‘Because of lack of financial sources, we propose that LPAs contribute non-financially with existing project documentation, special equipment available, etc.’, the Minister said.
We must remember that at the end of April, MRDC, the Ministry of Environment and ApaSan signed a Memorandum of Understanding for implementation of phase III of the Project ‘Water and Sanitation (ApaSan) in the Republic of Moldova’.
The document provides for provision of appropriate conditions for successful implementation of a new phase of the Project, aiming to improve the sustainable access of the rural population in the Republic of Moldova to quality drinking water and sanitation.
The total cost of the phase III of ApaSan Project is around EUR 7.3 million of which EUR 1 million is the contribution of the Austrian Development Agency (ADA).
