Electoral contestants for Chisinau mayoralty

Viorel Topa
Candidate of the Electoral Bloc "PSD-PSL"

Electoral slogans:
A Modern Mayor for a Modern Town
Vote the New Man, Vote Change, Vote Viorel Topa!
Viorel Topa is Our Candidate
Vote Viorel Topa!
25 May - Come to vote, we have to elect the Mayor of Chisinau!

http://www.topa.md

Biography

Viorel Topa was born in 1966 in Chisinau. His father, journalist Tudor Topa, served for many years as editor-in-chief of the daily "Moldova Suverana" (Sovereign Moldova). His mother, Ana Topa, worked at the National Library. At present, both parents are pensioners. In 1983 Viorel Topa graduated from the General School No. 1 of Chisinau. In 1990 he was awarded the licence of the Faculty of Industrial Administration Organisation of the Institute of Management of Moscow. He was an intern at the Bank of New-York (USA), Commerzbank (Germany), Austria Bank (Austria) and Midland Bank (Great Britain).

He started his career in 1991-1992 at the Commercial Bank "Bessarabia" of Chisinau. In 1992-1994 he was Senior Specialist at the Commercial Bank "Mobiasbank", in 1994-1996 - Head of Department for External Relations, and in 1996-1999 - Deputy Chairman at the same bank.

In 1999-2001 he was Chairman of the Joint Stock Association Bank of Savings.

Since 2001 he worked in private business.

In 2001 he was nominated as the best bank manager from Eastern Europe by an international audit company. He speaks English and French and his hobbies are football, computers and astronomy.

Economic programme for Chisinau (abridged)

The problems faced by the residents of Chisinau (roads and the energy system; funding the infrastructure, kindergartens and schools; ensuring jobs; raising wages and pensions; medical and social insurance; investments) have one common feature: they are all economic problems.

We have grouped these problems into four classes, according to the following criteria: similarities in their essence, methodology of resolution, ways of perception and definition, allocation of resources for their resolution, other similarities and shared economic characteristics.

By all means, these classes of problems are interconnected, one deriving from another and mutually influencing each other. We have focused on a number of problems that we believe are determinant for the rest of the derivative problems.

The thermo-energetic and water supply sectors
(the monthly bills paid by the residents of Chisinau)

Objective:
The thermal agent is based on the price of imported power resources, therefore the cost of bills can only be reduced through eliminating or minimising other costs than the ones related to the import of power resources:
• Through introducing modern technologies;
• Through reducing the technological losses of production and transportation;
• Through reducing non-payments and late payments;
• Through managerial efficiency and optimised funding.

The new termo-energetic system is to meet the following requirements:

• Modern technological capacity (i.e. maximal) and reducing the billed payments;
• Autonomy for every consumer, and avoiding payments for heterogeneous (in terms of paying capacity) communities of consumers;
• Modern electronic system of billing, record keeping and monitoring of supplies and consumer debts and the optimisation of payments for systemic and managerial spending.

Methods:
Gradual substitution of the old Soviet with modern autonomous systems, that is, the technological endowment of the system of supplying and monitoring thermal agents.

Expected outcomes:


• Cheaper thermal agents and bills reduced by about 30%-40%;
• Payments for consumption only, with no pay for power losses and for other consumers' debts;
• Autonomous supply of thermal agents in the necessary amounts and at normative quality.

Sector of infrastructure, communications and roads
(streets of Chisinau, transport and communications)

Objective:
Bringing the roads (communications system) to the standard of European capitals. The procedure is technical - if abroad there are good roads, we have to learn to have good roads too.

Methods:
The main method is to improve, and in most cases change, the management personnel responsible for the maintenance, construction, service and monitoring of the state of the communication systems, including the roads in Chisinau.

Expected outcomes:
Roads of European quality, cost and traffic capacity. The term for achieving the outcomes should not be longer than 1-2 renovation terms.

Housing sector
(access of Chisinau residents to houses)

Objective:
The above mentioned disadvantaged groups do not have money or huge wages in other countries, but they can afford a house. Thus, our objective is to ensure the population of Chisinau with houses at accessible prices.

Methods:
All over the civilised world people buy houses on mortgage (such systems require considerable investments to be started). According to this system, people can stay in a new or renovated house, which becomes their legal property only after they pay off their mortgage in 5 to 10 years.

Expected outcomes:


• Offering houses to the young, who, despite the overall situation in Chisinau, still want to contribute to the national economy, including projects of mortgage housing;
• Diminishing the prices on the housing market in Chisinau, and turning it into one more accessible to people with medium and small income.

Budget sector, business environment and investment climate
(budget sources, business impediments, real budget sources)

Objective:

• Fair re-proportioning of the contribution of the municipal budget to the republican budget;
• Making the budget policy one stimulating business and the private sector;
• Diminishing the shadow economy, orienting the budget policy towards discouraging the illegal business activity;
• Technological control and monitoring over the budget exercise, in particular the expenditures;
• Reducing bureaucratic pressure through passing the small and medium sized businesses to fixed and simplified taxing rates which would protect entrepreneurs from administrative abuses;
• Increasing the job offer by enhancing the economic activity, weakening the bureaucratic and fiscal pressure, through taxation based on the official salary fund and the official number of employees;
• Increasing income to the municipal budget and setting up additional resources for the resolution of municipal problems: social assistance, medical and education systems, roads and communications infrastructure, other needs.

Methods:


• Influencing the municipal taxation reform and passing to a simplified taxation for small and medium sized businesses, imposing the fixed taxation system (which does not need sophisticated accounting audit and which can protect entrepreneurs from bureaucratic arbitrariness);
• Fighting bureaucracy and corruption by abolishing formalities that allow officers to exercise pressure on businesses;
• Passing to the stimulating system of the conception of the budget and the municipal budgetary exercise from structural credits;
• Influencing the determination of the maximum sum of deductions (including fiscal) to not more than 15% for small and medium sized businesses yearly;
• Re-proportioning the contribution of the municipal budget to the republican one, restoring the fair treatment of tax paying agents;
• Increasing municipal budget returns by simplified fiscal methods and procedures, which do not allow for fiscal evasion and which ensure the equal treatment of tax payers and bridge the tax differentiation, by introducing a public electronic monitoring of returns and spending;
• Increasing the number of jobs in Chisinau and the job offer by taking stimulating measures for entrepreneur activity.

Expected outcomes:


• Increasing the incomes to the budget and the financial resources for social assistance, health assistance and education, roads and communications infrastructure etc.;
• Fighting bureaucracy and corruption, making businesses independent of the arbitrariness of public officers, simplifying formal procedures;
• Increasing the real demand for jobs, making the business environment more dynamic, stimulating the job offer and the investment climate.

If things go wrong somewhere in the world, it is because of the management, if things go well, this is because of the management.