The South Regional Development Council met today in plenary session to hear the Evaluation Report of the Concept Notes submitted at the Tender of Project Proposals in 2016 and to approve the list of priority projects, which will pass to the second phase of the Tender announced by the Ministry of Regional Development and Construction for funding in the period 2017-2020.

Given the presence of 24 regional councillors out of the total 32 councillors, the meeting was declared deliberative and was attended by the Deputy Minister of Regional Development and Construction, Anatol Usatii, the head of the General Directorate of Regional Development of the MRDC Valerian Binzaru, Igor Malai, deputy head of the General Directorate of Regional Development of the MRDC, etc.

In the absence of the Chairman of the South RDC for objective reasons, the meeting was chaired by the Deputy Chairman of the South RDC Ion Ciontoloi, President of Causeni Rayon. Ion Ciontoloi welcomed the presence of the presidents of Rayons, mayors, representatives of business environment and the associative sector, as well as several officials from the Directorates of Economy and Attraction of Investments of Rayon Councils, at one of the most important meetings in the center of residence of the South Region.

Declaring the forum’s proceedings opened, Ion Ciontoloi put on vote the on session agenda, which was unanimously approved by the members of the South RDC.

On behalf of the central authorities, Anatol Usatii, Deputy Minister of Regional Development and Construction, specified in his speech delivered at the opening of the session that: “It is probably one of the most important meetings of the term of the current South Regional Development Council, because at this meeting the Concept Notes (CNs) of projects that will be admitted to the next phase of the National Tender of Project Proposals will be presented and voted. And namely: the list of projects to be funded by the National Regional Development Fund and implemented between 2017-2020 will be voted. Such exercise occurs every 4-5 years and is a major opportunity for the LPAs in the region, therefore the decision that you are going to make should be well-reasoned and balanced”.

In what follows, Maria Culesov, Director of the South Regional Development Agency, presented extensive information about the activities carried out by the Agency during the period from 15 March to 3 May this year as part of the Tender of Project Proposals 2016. Mrs. Culesov pointed out that the current Tender aims to stimulate the initiatives of consolidation and development of the regional economy and infrastructure of local and regional importance for implementation of regional development projects and about 1 billion MDL will be allocated in the coming years.

As to the activities carried out in the first phase of the Tender, the head of the South RDA stated in conclusion that they proved to be welcome and effective, so that they ended with a good outcome: 100 concept notes were received from LPAs from the South Region, of which by areas: Road Infrastructure (29 projects); Water Supply and Sanitation (25 projects); Solid Waste Management (7 projects); Development of Business Infrastructure (16 projects); Increasing Tourist Attractiveness (13 projects); Energy Efficiency of Public Buildings (9 projects) and Others (1 project).

As for the receipt of the Concept Notes by Rayons, Maria Culesov stressed that most – 20 – came from Cantemir Rayon, 18 – from Cimislia Rayon, 16 – from Leova, 14 – from Cahul, 11 – from Causeni, 9 – from Stefan Voda and 6 each – from Taraclia and Basarabeasca Rayons.

Then the Evaluation Report of the Concept Notes of the projects submitted at the Tender of Proposals 2017-2020 followed and was read by Ion Ciontoloi, Deputy Chairman of the South RDC and member of the Evaluation Commission. The findings made clear that of the 100 Concept Notes evaluated by the commission, 16 were eliminated because they did not correspond to the Sector Regional Program and were not awarded the required number of points based on the evaluation criteria. Thus, finally 84 Concept Notes were proposed to the South RDC for evaluation and admission to the second phase of the Tender of Project Proposals.

The evaluation results of the phase I of the Tender of Project Proposals were presented to the regional councillors in graphic form making clear how the Concept Notes submitted by each field gained the maximum number of points and which are the amounts requested from the NRDF. Thus, the amount requested from the NRDF for the 84 Project Proposals received only from the South Region was huge, i.e. 2 billion 191,778,500 MDL.

That amount, however, was not taken into account and did not made the members of the South RDC to be more thoughtful and reasonable in decision making on this issue, they insisted by their majority vote on keeping the entire list of the projects proposed for examination to the inter-ministry commission at the phase II of the CPP.

Although the Deputy Chairman of the South RDC, Ion Ciontoloi, warned the representatives of the LPAs I and II to be aware that the projects submitted will need very large expenditures for preparation of the technical documents and feasibility studies, and representatives of the nongovernmental sector in the South RDC, Vera Ciuchitu and Silvia Strelciuc, urged the regional decision makers to be as rational and reasonable as possible in making the final decision, ultimately the proposal of the President of Cahul Rayon, Ion Groza, was supported by several heads of the administrative and territorial units of the South and accumulated the most votes.

Thus, at the meeting of 16 May 2016 “the South RDC left the “door open” for each of the 84 Concept Notes of Project Proposals that are to be examined in the second phase of the National Tender of Project Proposal 2017-2020.

We remind that the total amount planned to be allocated to the South Development Region in the next four years from the National Regional Development Fund is 200 million MDL.