Unwashed and fed-up Kyiv residents heaved a sigh of relief this week as hot water supplies finally began to be restored around the city after being turned off for more than a month in some districts.
Thanks to huge debts amounting to Hr 750 million, Kyivenergo, which supplies electricity, heat and hot water to most of Kyiv, was unable to secure gas to heat up water in June and July, Kyivenergo head Ivan Plachkov said on July 15.
Of that debt, Hr 90 million is owed by the government, Hr 35 million by district budgets and around Hr 490 million by individual consumers, he said.
Kyiv apartment-holders pay a lump sum covering water supply, heating and upkeep of communal areas like lifts and staircases either to local departments of public housing – known by their Russian acronym, ZhEK – or to a housing association or condominium. The government is supposed to top up payments from subsidy holders, also to ZhEKs or housing associations. The ZhEK then allocates money to the various suppliers.
ZhEKs and associations complained that the government had defaulted on subsidy payments, but ZhEKs around the city took action against consumers in their regions by posting their names on apartment doorways to shame them into paying, or even threatening to take them to court.
‘There are people who can pay but they don’t for six months or a year,’ said Lyubov Orencha, head of ZhEK 401 in the center of Kyiv. ‘I pay all the time, and my neighbors don’t pay. Why should I suffer because of them? So we’ve tried to organize measures like posting lists. We hope it will work because those who don’t pay won’t like their neighbors reading their names.’
Residents have retaliated by accusing ZhEKs of misappropriating the money that is paid to them, using it for building maintenance, which is also the ZhEK’s direct responsibility, rather than transferring it to suppliers.
‘Of course people take off money for extra expenses, they pay for their needs first,’ said one woman from the Obolon district in Kyiv.
A cashier from an Obolon ZhEK that had posted names of non-payers said that no one had come in to complain, they had only come in to pay up.
‘What are they going to complain about? Themselves?’ she said. ‘They are to blame.’
Plachkov however said that ZhEKs cannot get themselves organized well enough to collect bills efficiently, and some ZhEKs themselves admitted that debt collection was beyond them.
‘The lists of debtors get torn down within seconds,’ said Orencha, whose ZhEK has filed court claims on 156 persistent non-payers. ‘There are so many people who don’t pay, maybe because they haven’t managed to put in a subsidy claim, or they are only temporarily staying in the flat. We’ve invited debtors to make extra contracts with us to take out another subsidy or pay in installments or whatever, we’re racking our brains how to organize it all. We are at our wit’s end.’ None of the claims have come to court, she said.
The cuts this summer have resulted in calls both from residents and from suppliers to change the system of payments via ZhEKs to a more efficient one of direct payment.
‘We need to throw out the old system,’ said the Obolon resident. ‘The ZhEK doesn’t actually supply anything so why should payments go through them? People should pay separately for all their amenities and they should deal directly with the suppliers.
At present Kyivenerho deals with entire districts, but Plachkov said the firm is already negotiating individual contracts with ZhEKs regarding payment. The next step is to make similar contracts with public buildings like schools and shops. Ultimately Kyivenerho plans to work directly with cooperatives or condominiums of individual blocks, who he said pay their bills on time through better organization. These contracts will be in place by 1999, Plachkov said.
Orencha welcomed the news that suppliers would begin to deal directly with housing blocks.
‘This is absolutely right,’ she said. ‘They should know first hand how hard it is to screw money out of people.’
So far, Kyivenerho has negotiated agreements with ZhEKs and budgetary organizations whereby debtors will pay all current fees and also pay 5 percent of the previous debts immediately. By July 15, the company had received guarantees from 32 ZhEKs, and around 30 percent of consumers were again receiving hot water. Plachkov promised that all consumers in Kyivenerho districts, which cover most of the city excluding Darnitsa and Teremki, will be reconnected by July 18.
But cutting off the water supplies did not seem to have the desired effect in encouraging people to pay their bills. Only just over Hr 4 million flowed into the coffers from individual debtors – less than one percent of the total owed. Kyivenerho was drawing up new measures to apply against customers who owe money from July 20.
ZhEKs and residents throughout the city said that the new rules will cut off hot water supplies to individual blocks if over 70 percent of their residents do not pay up on time. Plachkov however would not confirm this information, saying only that agreements had been reached stipulating 100 percent current payment and 5 percent payment of past debt.
The company has no plans to introduce regulated heating supply to individual flats or to negotiate contracts with householders, Plachkov said.
(Alexey Zerkalov contributed to this article)
