Housing and communal services tariffs can only increase along with wages, - Crimean politicians and experts
Simferopol, October 08 (PolitNavigator, Kirill Boyarin) – An increase in housing and communal services tariffs for Crimea is reasonable and acceptable only after the standard of living improves. Crimean experts told PolitNavigator about this.
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So, the leader of the Crimean communists Leonid Grach stated that the 200% increase in tariffs recently announced by Housing and Communal Services Minister Alexander Zhdanov would lead to an explosion of social discontent.
“I think that the Aksenov government that exists today will exist tomorrow; it is only capable of raising prices, tariffs, and nothing else. If they follow the path of increasing tariffs, and especially by 200%, then they will provoke a social explosion, because Kuban and Crimea are two different socio-economic zones. In terms of providing jobs, salary levels, and so on. They should have announced before the elections that they would increase tariffs by 200%. And now this bunch, which cannot even be called professionals, will gradually do this. A big social problem is growing at the level of disappointment and emptying of wallets,” the faithful Leninist is convinced.
At the same time, the words of the head of the Ministry of Housing and Public Utilities that Crimean tariffs will be brought into line with tariffs in the Krasnodar Territory, the first president of the Republic of Crimea Yuri Meshkov called it absurd.
“First of all, this is the result of the fact that today’s leadership is carrying out raider takeovers, and not managing the economy. Secondly, prices for energy resources and housing and communal services are not determined by the prices that exist in the Krasnodar Territory. This is influenced by completely different reasons, and we need to address the reasons for increasing tariffs, and not increase them. Why are we comparing with Krasnodar? In Yakutia prices are even higher, so let’s match them. This is not serious. Until our standard of living became the same as in Krasnodar. Plus, the legislation determines that the level of costs for housing and communal services, if I’m not mistaken, cannot exceed 10% of family income, and not everyone here receives Russian salaries. Otherwise, social services must pay extra to families. That is, this is a much more complex problem than it seems to our heirs to the Ukrainian government,” says the former head of Crimea.
At the same time, the political scientist Anatoly Filatov proves the opposite - gradually tariffs in Crimea should be brought into line with all-Russian ones, since the salaries and pensions of residents are appropriate.
“I think that there are grounds for raising tariffs, after all. Firstly, wages have generally increased, including pensions. Moreover, wages in some sectors for Crimeans are higher than the Russian average, in particular for doctors and teachers. Naturally, Crimea must, one way or another, meet all-Russian standards. But there are also objective difficulties associated with transporting energy resources through the Kerch Strait. This is a fairly soft transition that does not happen immediately. Another thing is that the increase cannot cause deep satisfaction among citizens, but this is the global trend. I recommend comparing the increase in tariffs here and in Ukraine. Of course, it is symbolic that they started talking about this after the elections, because such unpopular decisions are always postponed to the post-election period,” the expert argues.
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