Translated by Ollie Richardson
12:55:49
26/04/2018
glavnovosti.com
The communal housing debts of Ukrainians, who aren’t able to pay extravagant tariffs any more, have reached a record 40 billion hryvnia. And despite this, Naftogaz in its financial plan for 2018 established in advance a 60% increase in gas prices. At the same time, the net profit of Naftogaz reached $1.5 billion. For comparison, Gazprom’s profit reached $1.6 billion.
This was reported by the People’s Deputy of the Verkhovna Rada Aleksandr Vilkul on Facebook.
He noted that Naftogaz pulled this sum out of the pockets of Ukrainians by increasing tariffs, which were raised eightfold. They don’t plan to stop, because in the near future Ukraine can expect a 60% increase.
“At the same time the other state enterprise ‘Ukrgazdobycha’ extracts about 15 billion cubic meters of gas, which is practically enough to meet the population’s demands. And the price of this gas at the tap is about 1,700 hryvnia per one thousand cubic meters. So why is it sold to us at almost 7,000 hryvnia?!
I.e., such enormous profit is the usual speculation of Naftogaz and the government on prices. But where is the money received by the gas monopolist? The money disappears into schemes and goes towards personally enriching the leadership of the company, which receives millions in salaries,” wrote the deputy.
Vilkul also added that this year representatives of Naftogaz wanted to gift themselves about 700 million hryvnia in bonuses!
“And while huge sums settle in the pockets of officials, the debt of the population for communal housing has exceeded 40 billion hryvnia. Thousands of families live daily in fear of being thrown out with their children into the street because of debts. That’s why several years ago we submitted to parliament draft bills that not only ban further increases in tariffs, but also their justified decrease.
In addition, I also introduced a draft bill on banning evicting people from their only housing for communal debts. People must live normally and not be afraid of turning on the heating or the hobs one more time,” added Aleksandr Vilkul.
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