Update — 14 August 2026. The Zagarancea commune hall answered our request and, in an official document, broke down the 412,000 lei of the contract: 312,000 lei from the local budget and 100,000 lei from the district budget — the contribution of the Ungheni District Council, which until now did not appear in the procurement documents. The commune hall also explains why the work, entered in the plan as a “small-value contract” of 375,000 lei, ended up at an electronic auction: a re-estimate above the procurement threshold, because of the rising price of materials, asphalt in particular. And on Națională Street, asked for by residents, mayor Vasile Gaviuc says it is at the technical-design stage, together with Grigore Vieru Street, with financing proposed from the amalgamation fund with the municipality of Ungheni. The details below.
Update — 29 July 2026. The figure missing from the procurement documents exists: HelpAge Moldova allocated 68,250 lei from the project’s funds to buy the 175 tonnes of stone needed for the asphalting. The money went through a procurement separate from the commune hall’s, so it is not part of the 412,000 lei of the contract with “Balt-Cons” — it is added to it. The organisation also named the five localities of Ungheni district covered by the project, and what else has been built in Zagarancea commune — the details below, under “Who put up the money”. The text published on 27 July stands.
The “Satul Semeni” community page announced last week that the access to the post office, the library and the cultural centre in the village had been surfaced with asphalt, thanking the Zagarancea commune hall, the organisation HelpAge Moldova and the Ungheni District Council.
The sums are in the public documents of the procurement. In the spring, the Zagarancea commune hall put out to tender “repair works on the road section of Prut–Dosoftei Street, access to the Semeni Cultural Centre and the Semeni post office” — an object that overlaps with what was announced in the village. The contract was awarded on 21 May 2026 to SRL “Balt-Cons”, for 344,000 lei excluding VAT; 412,000 lei including VAT, according to the award decision.
Three bids and 59,000 lei below the estimate
The commune hall estimated the work at 403,000 lei excluding VAT. By the deadline, 15 May, three firms had submitted bids: “Balt-Cons” with 344,000 lei, “Drumuri-Strășeni” with 359.669,56 lei and “Servicii Comunale Ungheni” with 399.730,51 lei. The criterion applied was “the lowest price”, and the contract was awarded 59,000 lei below the estimate — almost 15% of the anticipated value. The decision bears the signature of the commune hall’s procurement working group, chaired by mayor Vasile Gaviuc.
The work appeared in the commune’s procurement plan for 2026, in the version amended on 3 April: at position 16, “repair of Mitropolit Dosftei Street — access to the Semeni Post Office”, with 375,000 lei estimated. The procedure actually put out to tender had a broader object than the one in the plan — it adds Prut Street and the access to the Cultural Centre — and a higher estimated value, 403,000 lei. The library, mentioned in the post from the village, does not appear in the name of the contract.
The commune hall explained, in its answer to the newsroom, how the work moved from a “small-value procurement” to an electronic auction: the initial estimate of 375,000 lei was revised because of the rising price of construction materials — asphalt in particular —, exceeded the threshold of the simplified procedure and obliged the authority to run a price-quotation competition.
Another frame published together with the announcement. Photo: the “Satul Semeni” community page
Who put up the money
The announcement from the village places the investment “under the active-ageing project”, with the support of three partners. The project exists and is documented: from December 2023 to November 2027, HelpAge Moldova is running the programme “Improving the social participation of older people in Moldova through the development of pilot age-friendly communities”, financed by the Federal Government of Germany and carried out in 15 communities in the districts of Sîngerei, Telenești and Ungheni. Five of them are in Ungheni district: the town of Ungheni, Costuleni, Zagarancea, Măcărești and Mănoilești, the organisation said in an answer for Triunghi.md.
The procurement documents, however, show a commune hall procedure, included in the commune’s annual procurement plan, and the award decision does not indicate the source of financing. The two do not exclude each other, and HelpAge Moldova shows how they were woven together: 68,250 lei were allocated from the project’s funds to buy the 175 tonnes of stone needed for the asphalting, through the organisation’s own procurement procedure, separate from the commune hall’s, because a donor’s procurement rules differ from those of a local public authority. The sum therefore does not fall inside the 412,000 lei of the contract with “Balt-Cons” — it is added to it. The contribution of the Ungheni District Council — 100,000 lei — now appears in the Zagarancea commune hall’s answer of 7 August 2026 to the newsroom, which also shows that the remaining 312,000 lei of the contract came from the commune’s local budget.
Also from the project, the commune created the social service “Club for older people of Zagarancea commune”: 220,000 lei from the project’s funds and 145,000 lei from the commune hall, for outdoor sewerage, interior renovation, furniture and the necessary equipment. A ramp and handrails were installed at the post office and at the public library, and a gazebo for outdoor socialising was put up in the club’s yard. Alongside the local civic association there is a mutual support group of older people in Zagarancea, which organises sports activities, dancing, learning and craft workshops, and information sessions with specialists, including on health.
One in five residents
The scale of the investment can be seen in the population data. On 1 January 2026, Zagarancea commune had 2,790 residents, of whom 558 at or above retirement age — a fifth. In 2014, the commune had 3,203 residents and 467 people in the same group, that is 14.6%. Over twelve years, the population fell by 413 people, while the number of those at retirement age rose by 91. (The figures for 2026 are preliminary, and the group is defined by the retirement age, which has changed almost every year; in this table, the National Bureau of Statistics does not go below commune level.)
For a person of 70, an asphalted access to the post office is not cosmetics: that is where the pension is collected, whatever the weather. Rural communities in the project’s area stand at 20–30 points out of 100 on accessibility for older people, compared with 75 in the town of Ungheni, says the executive director of HelpAge Moldova, in a report about the network of support groups in the three districts.
If we talk about Ungheni, the town of Ungheni, on ageing or on accessibility and an age-friendly environment, they have 75 points, the town enjoys a very inclusive environment. If we talk about rural communities, then they have 20-30 points out of 100 possible. Tatiana Sorocan, executive director of HelpAge Moldova
What the villagers are asking for
Under the announcement, several residents asked for the works to continue in other parts of the village — one of them, Națională Street, invoked for the children’s walk to school in the rain. The street exists: numbers 3–21 appear in the address register. In the commune hall’s public documents, it appears neither in this contract, nor in the separate one, of 651,000 lei estimated, through which the commune hall bought repairs in the gravel variant on five other streets in Semeni — Dosoftei, Independenței, P. Ciobanu, Tineretului-Burebista and Zamca —, nor in the April amendment to the procurement plan. The plan can, however, be amended during the year, as happened in April, with this very road section.
In an answer to the newsroom, the commune hall said that Națională Street is at the technical-design stage, together with Grigore Vieru Street, and that the source of financing for the full repair of the section is proposed from the amalgamation fund with the municipality of Ungheni — money tied to the process by which several nearby localities are to merge with the town.
The sums, the bidders and the award criterion come from award decision No. 1 of 21 May 2026 of the Zagarancea commune hall, a scanned document published with the MTender procedure and read through optical text recognition. The value in the procurement plan comes from the annex to the decision of the Zagarancea communal council of 3 April 2026, published in the State Register of Local Acts, checked visually against the original scan. The population shares and variations are our own calculation, on the data of the National Bureau of Statistics. The photographs were published by the “Satul Semeni” community page. The breakdown of the financing — 312,000 lei from the local budget and 100,000 lei from the district budget — and the status of Națională Street come from official answer No. 137 of 7 August 2026 of the Zagarancea commune hall.