Winter costs money

RAO UES of Russia will come to the budget

Winter without shocks and disasters - this was the leitmotif of yesterday's government meeting. Realizing that the president had actually already identified the problem of preparing for winter as a political one, Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Khristenko decisively stated that technological difficulties should not be allowed to lead to a socio-political crisis. Despite the fact that, according to the Deputy Prime Minister, the situation with fuel procurement has improved significantly compared to previous years, it still remains quite tense. And above all, because of non-payments. Calling housing and communal services and direct payment for energy resources “a protected corner for the creditor,” Mr. Khristenko promised that by the end of the year it will be possible to finally pay off the debts of budget recipients. “The government has clearly decided that defaulters will be limited in the supply of heat and electricity,” said the Deputy Prime Minister. According to him, next year’s budget provides for a significant increase in expenses for preparation for winter, which will also cover a possible increase in tariffs.

The problem of temporary conservation of tariffs until the end of the year remains a platform for a battle between the government and natural monopolies. The success of the Ministry of Railways, which managed to increase tariffs (18%), today haunts the head of RAO UES of Russia, Anatoly Chubais. He is confident that, following the railroad workers, coal companies will raise prices by 30-40%, and therefore continues to insist that all this is “sufficient grounds” for increasing electricity tariffs. The Ministry of Energy does not agree with Mr. Chubais. The head of this department, Igor Yusufov, is confident that it is more expedient to attract loans to RAO than to increase tariffs. He assumes that for lending you can use partly budget funds, partly from Sberbank. The government made a decision on budget lending to RAO UES yesterday, allocating 5 billion rubles for this. However, Mr. Chubais has in mind an increase in tariffs beyond this amount. To which Mr. Khristenko responded after the cabinet meeting as follows: “There are no revolutions expected in the area of ​​tariff increases at the federal level before the end of the year. If individual decisions are made, it will most likely be done at the regional level in order to equalize the rates.”

In addition to the allocation of money from the treasury for the winter for RAO UES, 10 billion rubles will be given to federal budget recipients and another 4.85 billion to the regions - the funds will arrive in their accounts in August-September. All this money, according to Mr. Khristenko, will be taken from additional budget revenues.

The “club of critical regions,” as the Deputy Prime Minister put it, remains virtually unchanged: Primorye, Kamchatka, Magadan, Arkhangelsk. The Ulyanovsk region fell into the same row. But as Mr. Khristenko noted, “the reason there is different - the high degree of politicization of economic decisions made by the previous leadership.” Realizing that this was an opportunity to ask the government for money, Governor Vladimir Shamanov requested 1.5 billion rubles for the winter. Mr. Khristenko reacted immediately: “Are you serious? I don’t even know how to comment. In general, this is money that we can allocate to the country.”

Vera KUZNETSOVA