Sandu announced the absence of a multimillion-dollar debt of Moldova to Gazprom

The audit did not reveal the debt of Moldovagaz to the Russian Gazprom in the amount of $800 million, said Moldovan President Maia Sandu. It is reported by the publication Nokta.

An official statement on the results of the audit, which was carried out by foreign experts, the government will make next week. Sandu said that in negotiations with Gazprom before the winter season of 2021, the Russian side decided not to renew the contract “at the last moment”, and Moscow, according to her, wanted to “quickly deceive” the Moldovan delegation.

“This is not yet known to the public, but next week our government will come out and say that we have hired an international company that has done an audit and said that we do not have any debts. [перед «Газпромом»] $ 800 million. They wanted to quickly deceive. They left us without gas. Winter on the nose, – said President (quote from Moldavskiye Vedomosti).

Earlier, Gazprom reported that the debt of Moldovagaz for the supplied gas is $433 million, and taking into account the delay in payments – $709 million. The Moldovan government decided to conduct an independent audit to clarify this figure. It was reported that the audit will affect both the company’s subsidiaries and legal entities directly or indirectly related to the gas sector.

In July Moldova announced completion of the audit. Minister of Energy of the Republic Viktor Parlikov then said that his results would be presented after a thorough analysis, and called them “interesting”. Parlicov noted that during the audit, funds were identified that were unreasonably used by the Moldovagaz company.