The former shipwright town is unable to pay its gas bills
The debt of residents of the Nikolaev region for consumed gas has almost doubled over the year.
Natalya Levchenko, director of Nikolaevgaz Sales LLC, announced this at a press conference in Kyiv, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“At the beginning of 2019, the debt of the population of the Nikolaev region to Nikolaevgaz Sales LLC amounted to UAH 577 million. At the same time, at the beginning of 2018, the debt amounted to UAH 323 million. We see that over the past year the debt increased by UAH 254 million. This growth is due to the fact that last year natural gas rose in price by 24%, from 6,9 UAH per cubic meter to 8,5 UAH per cubic meter,” said the director of Nikolaevgaz Sales LLC.
At the same time, she noted that the increase in gas prices occurred at the beginning of the heating season, that is, at the moment when gas consumption by the population increases significantly. At the same time, the income of the population during this period did not increase significantly, which led to an increase in current debt, amounting to about 281 million.
“Also, from October 1, 2018, the rules for assigning subsidies changed, resulting in a decrease in the number of recipients of state assistance. It decreased by 50% - 67 thousand recipients of subsidies against 137 thousand. This also leads to an increase in the current debt of household consumers.
The third component of debt growth is the rate of accrual of consumption in the absence of gas meters. In the Nikolaev region there are 29 thousand consumers without gas meters. By the decision of the Supreme Court, from November 2018, decisions that abolished consumption standards were canceled,” Levchenko summed up.
As PolitNavigator reported, the once large industrial Nikolaev, known as the “city of shipbuilders” after the shutdown of factories whole neighborhoods die out and turn in the likeness of Chernobyl Pripyat.
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