VITALY KOROLYOV: SPECIFIC MEASURES ARE NECESSARY TO IMPROVE PAYMENT DISCIPLINE

Deputy Head of FAS Vitaly Korolyov took part and made a report at the Round Table organized by the Economic Policy Committee of the Federal Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation. The event focused on improving the payment discipline among consumers of energy resources and housing-and-utility services.

Attendees included members of the Federal Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, representatives of the federal and regional authorities.

Vitaly Korolyov emphasized that to solve the non-payment issue specific measures should be amended to reduce considerably the risks of non-payments. For instance, subsidiary responsibility of founders should apply to departmental, public and municipal resource consumers on the debts of such organizations.

Most debts on the wholesale electric power market are formed by non-payments of energy suppliers – providers of last resort in the Republics of the North Caucasus.

"No doubt, measures should be undertaken to radically improve payments to wholesale market by these companies, currently comprised by the “Rosseti” Holding. Without significant managerial improvement, attracting attention to top-executives of the state-run company, the Ministry of Energy, the problem will only aggravate. FAS proposes and had long been insisting on absolute compliance with the law and alienating these companies from the structure of grid companies. The antimonopoly bid repeatedly indicated this to the Ministry of Energy; however, the situation has got nowhere so far. Possibly, such non-efficiency, non-transparency and high losses are acceptable for everybody, but it cannot be accepted by the markets, where debts are growing and cannot be approved by the regulator responsible for observing all norms of the antimonopoly law”, stated Vitaly Korolyov.

An important vector is improving the law to apply direct contracts between consumers and resource suppliers, excluding intermediaries and use of successful regional practices towards improving payment discipline.

“We should replicate positive practices of non-payment reduction demonstrated by such subjects of the Russian Federation as the Moscow region and the Leningrad region. Active use of efficient payment centres, careful attention of the regional authorities to those issues, particularly, absolute provision of the payment for the energy resources consumed by public and municipal consumers – are the main elements enabling to significantly increase collection of payments for energy resources and improve payment discipline of consumers", pointed out Vitaly Korolyov.