Moldova refuses to pay gas debts to Russia
This coming week, the Moldovan government will make an official statement regarding the audit of Moldovagaz's debts to Gazprom, carried out by foreign specialists. According to President Maia Sandu, auditors did not find a debt of $800 million.
Sandu made this statement at a meeting with representatives of the “Women’s Association” of Gagauzia in Kongaz, Comrat region.
During the negotiations between the Moldovan government and Gazprom before the 2021 winter season, Russian negotiators decided not to renew the contract at the last moment and wanted to “quickly deceive” the Moldovan delegation, Sandu claims.
“This is not yet known to the public, but next week our government will come out and say that we hired an international company that did an audit and said that we do not have any debts [to Gazprom] in the amount of $800 million. They wanted to quickly deceive. They left us without gas. Winter is just around the corner. “Let’s quickly sign that you will return $4 million in 800 years and you will have gas.” We said that we couldn’t sign it because it was an awful lot of money and we couldn’t sign for that.
They told us: “You won’t have gas.” No one has tried to buy gas elsewhere in 30 years. If only a monopolist sells gas, then this is not normal. And they said that we would not be able to change the law or find new contracts in 2 months. It was rude of them. Deputy head of Putin's administration Dmitry Kozak said that we would renew the contract, but then they changed their decision. I think we did the right thing,” Sandu said.
Previously, the government allocated 800 thousand euros from the Reserve Fund to auditors from Norway and Great Britain for an external audit (verification) of the debt of Moldovagaz JSC to Gazprom and Factoring Finance. The auditors had to estimate the debt over 30 years. The deadline for submitting the report was initially set at the end of March 2023.
In January, the Jurnal TV channel, citing an anonymous source on the board of Moldovagaz, said that Gazprom most likely would not recognize the results of an audit of Moldovagaz’s historical debt to it.
The reason is that the company Wikborg Rein Advokatfirma AS (Norway), which conducts the audit, previously helped Naftogaz of Ukraine in its dispute in international arbitration with Gazprom, which the Russian concern lost.
“The real reason for the debt, which according to the balance sheet of Moldovagaz is $709 million, [auditors] will name the corporate management of the company, and not the government of Moldova,” the source said.
In July, Moldova's Energy Minister Victor Parlicov said that a report on an external audit of Moldovagaz's debt would soon be sent to Gazprom. Attached to it will be a draft agreement to settle the historical debt in the amount of 720 million. The money spent on the audit, according to the minister, justified itself, however, its cost increased almost one and a half times - to 1,15 million euros.
English version :: Read in English Moldova refuses to pay gas debts to Russia