Heat bills for January are 15% more than in December
- 16.02.2009 14:53
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The heat bills for January are 15% more than the ones for December, although the local authorities used to state they were going to be 40% less because of the gas crisis in early January. The Chisinau City Hall vows to have the bill re-calculated, while the Termocom heat supplier says the big bills are because of the compensations granted to the population, Info-Prim Neo reports.
Housing division manager Petru Gontea says the people have started to send in complaints. The Chisinau Municipal Council is to make a decision on re-calculating the bills on February 17.
According to the calculating company Infocom, the bills were already sent to consumers, as the people have paid 600,000 lei of those 96 million billed.
Termocom says the bills are calculated in strict compliance with the meters. “The large amounts are due to canceling the compensations granted from the municipal budget to private consumers,” said its spokesperson.
When asked by Info-Prim Neo to comment the situation, economist Veaceslav Ionita has said “they do not respect the most elementary rights of the consumer, and the consumer protecting associations should make Termocom comply.”
Actually there are two issues, he says, the technical part, the meters, is OK. But there is also the confusion issue: the people do not know whom and for what they pay, Ionita says. “There is no transparency and lucidity in Termocom's work for everybody. The situation is alarming. There is no rule in the system. Being a monopoly, Termocom asks us to pay for what we have not consumed,” the analyst says.
