Translated material
New Year's tariff
The city authorities will surprise citizens with new prices for utilities
Despite the fact that yesterday the Moscow City Duma finally approved the parameters of the capital's budget for 2010, deputies still do not know how the city's tariff policy will change in the new year. At least the chairman of the budget and financial commission of the Moscow City Duma, Igor Antonov, told Vremya Novostey yesterday that the mayor’s office has not yet submitted “official tariffs” to Duma financiers. But, according to him, in general, the population’s expenses for housing and communal services are included in the budget with an increase of approximately 27%.Mr. Antonov refused to name the expected increase in tariffs specifically for each service, citing the fact that the Moscow Regional Energy Commission (REC) is dragging its feet with the final figures. “I wrote a letter to Roslyak (Deputy Mayor, Head of the Economic Policy and Development Complex - Ed. ). He answered me that until the feds lower the tariffs in the region, they cannot calculate them,” explained Mr. Antonov, promising to work “more quickly” with the deputy mayor of Moscow, who heads the REC. According to the deputy, it will be possible to talk more substantively about the upcoming increase in tariffs no earlier than Friday.
However, the department of economic policy and city development told Vremya Novostey that it is not at all necessary to wait for the feds. If previously the maximum indices for changes in the size of citizens' payments for residential premises and utilities were approved by the Federal Tariff Service, then since 2009 the authority to set tariff maximums has been transferred to the regions. The Moscow government, according to the principle of three-year planning, predicted an increase in rent back in 2008.
According to calculations made by city economists even before the crisis, given the expected increase in wages of Muscovites, living standards in general, and in connection with the transition to 100 percent payment for housing and communal services, the maximum possible increase in rent in 2010 should have been 43.7%. “But a crisis has interfered with the socio-economic situation in the city,” the mayor’s office complains. Officials, realizing that such growth in conditions of instability was fraught with social upheaval, had to reconsider their plans. According to city economists, the maximum index of changes in the size of citizens' payments for housing and utilities next year will be 26%. This is almost the same amount as was allowed last year by the then federal maximum increase in prices for housing and communal services.
“But all tariffs will be distributed differently,” the mayor’s office clarified, emphasizing that prices for not all utilities will be increased so sharply. In particular, according to government decree No. 1233-PP of November 10, 2009, the maximum increase in fees for residential premises may be 14%. But the increase in prices for utilities could reach 27.9%. And the Moscow Regional Energy Commission recently approved new prices for cold water supply - they will increase by 28.4% compared to the current ones. A cubic meter of cold water for residents will rise in price from 15.45 rubles. up to 19.85 rubles.
What the tariff increases for each of the remaining items on the utility bill will be is still being determined, economists say. “Traditionally, if there are no force majeure, in the second ten days of December, prices and tariffs for housing and communal services must be approved by a separate resolution of the Moscow government in compliance with the specified indices,” officials note.
The mayor's office emphasizes that the increase in tariffs is partially compensated by the social support measures that have been adopted in the city. For example, in contrast to federal standards for the maximum allowable share of family expenses for rent of 22%, the city subsidizes utility costs for Muscovites if they exceed more than 10% of family income.