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Saturday 30th October 2021
Temeswar (ADZ) – On Thursday the Timisoara mayor’s office was able to convince a private natural gas supplier to conclude a short-term supply contract with the city’s own district heating supplier Colterm, valid until Monday at 7:00 a.m., and thus to supply the approximately 56,000 private and public consumers with district heating and hot water at least overnight. A supply around the clock will not be possible because the agreed gas quantities are rather small. The city has transferred a total of 8.3 million lei to Colterm these days, so that the company can pay its short-term natural gas supplier, said Mayor Dominic Fritz on Thursday. The two thermal power plants operated by Colterm burn coal, but they also need adequate amounts of gas to do so.
The mayor also stated that it was unclear what would happen from Monday, for the time being they were still empty and had to negotiate again. Only now is it clear to those involved what a deep energy crisis they are in across the country and Europe, so that the city is still forced to demand immediate support from the government, the natural gas companies and now also the European Commission, said Fritz. He could feel the disorientation on the energy market, without the intervention of the public purse one would not get any further. The entire budget of the city of Timisoara is not enough to pay the current price of natural gas. The government and parliament must immediately work out feasible solutions and intervene; a total of 27 cities in Romania have to struggle with such problems. In Timisoara town hall they are currently considering taking out loans from the Ministry of Finance in order to be able to buy natural gas.
The mayor was dismayed by the suffocation of the 66-year-old, who left the kitchen stove in his apartment connected to the Colterm network and not ventilated it. He called on citizens to adhere to the security measures in place in order to avoid such tragedies. After some media accused the Timisoara fire brigade of not adequately informing the citizens about the dangers of warming from left kitchen stoves, a spokeswoman for the Timisoara civil protection authority announced that numerous information campaigns had been carried out and brochures had been distributed, and that citizens could also register on YouTube or Inform Facebook.
While the Timisoara PSD, this time through the voice of the district association chairman Alfred Simonis, again called on the mayor to resign, citizens are arguing violently both on social media and in the comment forums in local newspapers. Many point out that the high debt burden is due to the failed policy of the previous mayor, while others see at least part of the guilt with Fritz, who misjudged the situation and wasted several months without ensuring a secure supply of natural gas . However, it is agreed that the PNL government will not intervene for political reasons alone and increase the pressure on the USR mayor, in Bucharest they could have made money loose, as has often happened before.
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