President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky has held a meeting at which he set the task for heating tariffs to be reduced in Ukrainians’ utility bills in December, since gas prices for the population had previously been reduced. “Gas prices have decreased, but tariffs have not. Why so? We are looking for ways to reduce the price and make Ukrainians receive lower heating bills in December,” he said on his Facebook page, where a video was also posted about the meeting attended by Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk, Energy Minister Oleksiy Orzhel, Head of the Presidential Office Andriy Bohdan and his deputy Yulia Kovaliv.
At the meeting, it was said that after lowering gas prices, Ukrainians should receive lower tariffs, but legislatively, it is impossible today to change heating tariffs until May 2020.
“We’ve coped with the gas price. In order for the heat tariff to go down this winter, we have a very short bill, which can be introduced by the president as urgent, and the adoption of this law will lead to the fact that our tariff for the population will decrease. This winter we have already protected consumers from tariff growth, because it has traditionally grown. It will not grow anymore,” Honcharuk said.
Kovaliv, in turn, noted that the National Commission for Energy, Housing and Utilities Services Regulation (NCER) is authorized to change the tariffs and this issue should also be discussed with the regulator.
