The very tariff

The Federal Housing and Public Utilities Service will give the Housing and Public Utilities to the governors last Friday the head of the Federal Tariff Service (FST) Sergey Novikov reported to the Federation Council on how his service fights and wins utility tariffs. The tariffs, however, will continue to grow. Consolation is one: the speed of their rise will slow down. However, after 2012, everything can change, and the FST, along with the federal government, will not be responsible for this.

How the tariffs stopped

Tariffs in Russia have always been regulated. Moreover, different tariffs. For example, natural monopolies. For a long time, in the process of settling the budget, the maximum levels of prices for their services were set. And then, during the budget year, tariffs were reviewed. Naturally, towards the increase. Three years ago, they finished with the tariff partisan - in any case, by law. The maximum level of tariffs began to be entered once a year, before the adoption of the federal budget. Electricians and railway workers - according to the “Inflation minus one percent” scheme, and Gazprom - as it happens. True, in May last year, at the beginning of the development of the 2007 budget in the “minus” scheme, it changed to “plus”. Gazprom received 15%, RAO UES and Russian Railways - 14% each. Such a leap (Herman Gref insisted to the last by 11% for gas workers and 8% for other monopolists) would probably lead to a communal price tsunami. In addition, many regional energy commissions, pushed to this governors, in the recent past, were often allowed local monopolists to almost double the utilities. As a result, over the past few years in January-February, inflation easily overcame 5%.

On February 2, in the Council of Council, Novikov explained to the senators how the dam was built. He recalled that on December 26, 2005, the Law “On Amending the Federal Law“ On the Basics of Regulation of Tariffs of Organizations of the Communal Complex ”was adopted. He was emitted in the department of Hermann Gref. He was accepted by the State Duma at the same pace and was put into effect on January 1, 2006. The maximum level of tariffs for housing and communal services in the regions was set at 20%. Moreover, the rate of tariff growth is only 8%, everything that is higher should be justified by development plans and investment projects of companies providing services.

According to Novikov, the law allowed almost twice to reduce the growth rate of utilities for utilities. If in 2005 they increased by 32.7%, then in 2006 (on average in Russia) - by 17.9%. True, at first, far from all regions, federal restrictions were taken seriously. Last winter, the fee for electricity, gas, water and heating in a number of regions increased by 30-80%immediately. I had to conduct educational work to the Minister of Regional Development Vladimir Yakovlev and even more high -ranking officials.

But in the end, it was possible to reduce the growth rate of utility bills and their contribution to inflation. According to Novikov, 1.6% in 2006 (the index of all consumer prices was limited to 9%).

How tariffs will be held

In order for the regional energy commissions and in the future it was not incomprehensible to violate the restrictive law (the most common option - fuel costs laid down in calculations for determining tariffs are overstated compared to expected ones, and the received funds are sent to non -core assets), it was decided to make amendments to the Code of Administrative Offenses (Code of Administrative Offenses).

In particular, the senators have already approved changes to Article 4.5 of the Code of Administrative Offenses, according to which the statute of limitations for administrative responsibility for violation of state regulation of prices (tariffs) from two months to one year is increasing. The adoption of the bill is due to the fact that in the field of state regulation of tariffs there is a significant time gap between the commission of the offense and the manifestation of its harmful consequences, as well as between the commission of an administrative offense and its detection. “Now in practice, we often face the fact that we do not have time to bring to justice of persons who have committed an offense,” Gazeta explained to the FST. Due to the short duration of the statute of limitations, “we take measures to cancel the decisions, but we cannot bring the perpetrators to justice”, complain to the FST. Now we are satisfied with the service: "One year is enough to win the case."

How to give tariffs

The FST plans to restrain the growth of tariffs at least until 2012. According to the prognosis of service, growth rates will even decrease. For example, utilities in 2007 will increase by no more than 15%, in 2008 - 13%, in 2009 - 11-12%. In addition, as President Vladimir Putin promised, the regulation of electric tariffs for the population will remain at least until 2015, despite the complete liberalization of gas and electricity markets for industrial consumers by 2011.

“Public tariffs should remain adjustable for a long time,” said Sergey Novikov in the Federation Council. At the same time, he reminded the senators that the federal law, which had amended state regulation of tariffs for housing and communal services, stops its effect on January 1, 2009. Therefore, he proposed to extend the law at least until 2012. However, as the head of the FST emphasized, “the law needs to be extended by concentrating responsibility at the municipal level, since the scale of the controller must coincide with the scale of the regulated organization.” Senators fully supported Novikov. “Oh, we don’t cling to the powers,” he added. The general view of the representatives of the regions and the head of the FST for the future of communal tariffs, apparently, means that the federal government after 2012 takes their hands and leave the population alone with local monopolists.

04/04/2007 / Evgeny Belyakov, the material was published in the "newspaper" No. 20 dated 05.02.2007.