Owners of premium homes will not yet pay for utility services at increased tariffs

February 16, Minsk / Yekaterina Nechayeva - BELTA /. The Belarusian government has suspended the decree on increased payment for housing and communal services for owners of high-comfort houses. This was announced today by Deputy Prime Minister Anatoly Kalinin at an expanded meeting of the Standing Committee of the House of Representatives on State Building, Local Self-Government and Regulations, according to a BELTA correspondent. As the Deputy Prime Minister explained, answering deputies' questions, due to the adoption of the decree on the introduction of increased tariffs for housing and communal services for owners of high-comfort houses (with a living area of more than 200 sq.m), many socially vulnerable categories of citizens found themselves in a situation where housing and communal services need to be paid at higher tariffs. For example, the government is aware of more than 600 such houses where veterans of the Great Patriotic War and labor, large families, and other socially vulnerable categories live, Anatoly Kalinin said. In this regard, it was decided to suspend the previously adopted decree "until an appropriate mechanism is developed," the Deputy Prime Minister noted. He explained that the government proposes to introduce a two-tier tariff system in the near future, consisting of a fixed and a variable part. "The first will include payment for normative consumption and access to services, the second - payment for excess consumption of services and comfort," Anatoly Kalinin said. The Deputy Prime Minister assured that the future payment system will definitely be discussed with the deputies. "As a first approximation, we are considering a gradation of housing with an area of 300 sq.m and more, in order to exclude the social category of citizens," he clarified. Anatoly Kalinin recalled that by the end of the five-year period, the level of cost recovery for housing and communal services by the population will increase to 60%, and for natural monopoly services will reach the cost price level (this applies to heat, energy, gas supply, as well as water supply and sewerage). -0-