Economic Development Ministry has prepared a draft recovery utility companies

Posted on Jun 4, 2012

Russian Regional Development Ministry has come up with how to solve the debt problems of the municipal utilities in 360 billion, due to which there does not reach private investment. According to the newspaper “Vedomosti”, officials have developed a draft law on financial restructuring of public utilities, which will enable them to restructure their debts to suppliers.

“In many ways there was payable because the budgets of all levels underfunded various incentives, subsidies and grants for the payment of utility bills,” – says the expert IUE Vladlen Prokofiev. To solve this problem, the Ministry of Regional Development has prepared a bill. “Business will not come in the housing, while there are debt,” – explains one of its authors.

The bill proposes that the first budget of all levels will take the obligation to repay the money public utilities, and those already depending on the schedule of repayment of these debts will conclude agreements on restructuring debt to its suppliers, said an official of the ministry. There are no special conditions for utility companies will not extend. They only have to provide the territorial commission payments arrears, an action plan to improve the health, consistent with the municipal authorities, and the debt restructuring agreement with creditors. The Commission may refuse to financial recovery only if the organization is in a state of bankruptcy or she entered into a settlement agreement with its creditors, or if it did not provide “sufficient evidence to ensure the performance of its current financial obligations.” Now the document is being coordinated in other agencies.

Prokofiev recalls that such a bill was proposed three years ago, but was not accepted. He believes that this is the document is not relevant, since utilities debt is decreasing every year. “Debt reduced, but very slowly,” – Those opposing UES Tatiana Milyaeva. Arrears of utilities to RAO UES now is 15 billion rubles, and in the structure of consumers, these enterprises occupy 17%. But energy is not worth much to count on a new law, because most of the debts have to be paid from the municipal budgets, and they have no money.