This week, government representatives will make statements on the audit of Moldovagaz’s historical debt to Russian Gazprom, conducted by foreign specialists, who found that Moldova does not owe the Russian concern $800 million. Statements to this effect were made by President Maia Sandu at a meeting with the “Women’s Association” of the Gagauz ATU, notes nokta.md.

The head of state spoke about the negotiations with Gazprom, which took place before the 2021 cold season, and stressed that the Russian negotiators decided at the last moment not to extend the contract and wanted to “quickly cheat” the Moldovan delegation.

“(…) Our government will make statements and say that we hired an international company that did an audit and found that we have no debts to (Gazprom, ed.) of $800 million. They wanted to cheat us. They left us without natural gas. Winter was coming. “Let’s sign quickly that you will pay $800 million for four years and you will have gas.” We said we couldn’t sign because it was a lot of money. We were told: ‘You won’t have gas'(…),” Maia Sandu said.

The Government approved in autumn 2022 the allocation by the Public Property Agency (PPA) of 800 thousand euros from the Reserve Fund for the external audit of Moldovagaz SA’s debt to Gazprom and Factoring Finance.

“According to the contract signed on August 10 with the companies Wikborg Rein Advokatfirma A.S. from Norway and Forensic Risk Alliance & Co. Limited of the United Kingdom, the audit will involve elucidating exactly how Moldovagaz’s debt to the Russian concern for natural gas delivered to the right bank in the period from August 27, 1991 to October 31, 2021,” government officials announced.

According to the Government, the verification process was to examine how Moldovagaz (and its predecessor companies) distributed payments for gas consumption between consumers on the right and left banks. Similarly, the auditors were to focus on the valuation of the assets previously transferred to Gazprom as (partial) settlement of the liabilities for the gas delivered to the right bank consumers and will, if necessary, revalue these assets.

According to the Executive, the legality of the assignment of Gazprom’s receivables to Factoring Finance was also to be verified.

In autumn 2021, the contract between Moldovagaz and Gazprom was extended for five years, based on a price formula “proposed by the Moldovan side”.

Moldova’s delegation, led by Minister of Infrastructure and Regional Development Andrei Spînu, and Gazprom’s delegation, led by the head of the Russian concern Alexei Miller, reached a basic agreement on the price formula, the audit of the debt formed within Moldovagaz and the need for further negotiations to establish a payment schedule.

Gas deliveries under the new contract started from November 1, 2021, but the gas will reach the left bank of the Dniester River from December 2022.

The debt of the right bank of the Dniester for natural gas delivered by the Gazprom concern amounted in April 2021 to about $715 million, including penalties, while the debt of the left bank of the Dniester was almost $6.8 billion. The information was presented at the time by the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Moldovagaz OJSC at the public hearing organized by the public finance control commission on the issue of protecting the interests of the state as a shareholder of Moldovagaz OJSC.

According to the information presented by Vadim Ceban, Chairman of the Administration Commission of Moldovagaz JSC, the debts of the right bank of the Dniester for natural gas delivered by Gazprom concern amounted to about 715 million dollars with penalties, which are mainly due to thermoelectric enterprises.

As for the left side of the Dniester, Vadim Ceban said that the debt was almost $6.8 billion, mainly owed to Tiraspoltransgaz.