The president of the “Effectiva” consumer association, Dejan Gavrilović, said yesterday that he expects the city councilors of the Belgrade Assembly to adopt a proposal on reducing heating bills at today’s session. This proposal came before the councilors as this association launched an initiative to reduce heating bills due to the postponement of the heating season that was supposed to start on October 15th to November 1st.
– I hope that the proposal will be adopted, that the bills of the citizens of Belgrade will be reduced and that there will be no need to deal with it anymore – Gavrilović said for Tanjug. He added that at the session of the City Assembly, the proposal will be included under item seven of the agenda. By the way, at the end of last week, the ombudsman of the city of Belgrade announced that after the report of “Effectiva”, he issued an opinion on the need to count down. From this association, they note that the Ombudsman confirmed all the allegations of “Effective” from the past month, in which they stated that the decision to postpone the heating season was made illegally, and that the bills must be reduced in accordance with the decision on the supply of thermal energy, as well as by the Law on Consumer Protection.
– PUK “Beogradske elektrane” now has 30 days to act on the ombudsman’s recommendation. If they don’t do that, he can turn to the authorities in the City Assembly, as well as initiate the responsibility of the managers of the “Belgrade Power Plant” PUC. If the heating plants do not act according to the recommendation, “Effectiva” will invite citizens to initiate mass consumer disputes, which are completely free of charge, and with this opinion of the Citizens’ Protector, the disputes will certainly end in favor of consumers – they state in this association. They called on the city councilors to do what the citizens are asking them to do and vote for a fair reduction in the bill.
– This is their job and obligation, and in this way they will protect “Belgrade Heating Plants” from a large number of lawsuits, and therefore large costs – they note. The representatives of the Consumer Protection Association immediately after the postponement of the heating season sent a letter to the City Secretariat for Energy, which is responsible for the implementation of the decision on the supply of thermal energy, in which they requested a fair reduction of the bill. They also filed a misdemeanor complaint against this public company for not delivering a chargeable service, the implementation of which had to start on October 15. According to their calculation, if the heating season lasts for six months and is shortened by half a month, which represents 8.33 percent of the heating season, it is logical that the citizens, to begin with, should be charged that much less for the whole year. In this way, the logic of the heating plant would be followed, which defines the existing heating charge as an “annual bill” for the supplied heating, divided into 12 months, in order to make it easier for consumers. Several heating plants in cities that also charge per square meter for heating have already accepted the proposal and have mostly returned money to consumers or plan to do so soon, Politika writes.
