Although they owe millions, gas is not excluded from state-owned companies. – At the same time, the state expects socially endangered households to pay all bills in advance in order to exercise the right to free electricity and gas.
That The Electric Power Industry of Serbia is not the only public company that cannot collect millions of debts for electricity to most state-owned companies is confirmed by the latest list with the names of Srbijagas debtors for delivered and consumed gas, which grew to more than 4 by June this year.
This public company, as can be seen from the table of 20 companies with the largest increase in debt, regularly invoices its receivables, but fails to collect all the delivered goods, which it only has to pay to the Russian supplier.
Dusan Bajtovic, General Manager of Srbijagas, recently, presenting the business results, pointed out that in order to overcome the liquidity problem due to the social aspect of the business of this public company (which means the difference between gas prices and low collection rate, above all from state-owned companies) the company borrowed from commercial banks, and guarantees were given by the Republic of Serbia as the 100% owner of Srbijagas.
When the loan was due, the Ministry of Finance partially repaid the loan, which created a new obligation for Srbijagas, which was converted into capital in 2019, Bajatovic explained.
In addition, by converting its receivables into capital, Srbijagas enabled other companies to continue working, even though they were in an extremely difficult financial situation. The total amount of receivables that Srbijagas converted exceeds 680 million euros. That is exactly how Srbijagas is today 100 percent owner in the company Gas Becej d. o. o., Luka Pancevo, while Azotara has 85% ownership, and the amount of conversion is 160.7 million euros.
By the way, at the time when Srbijagas owed 1.7 billion euros to the economy, public companies owed Srbijagas 2.4 billion euros.
Although none of the officials wanted to say yesterday whether gas is being cut off to large consumers due to debts, Politika finds out that there are almost no shutdowns at all. It all comes down to a quiet “warning” to the debtor that he can’t buy gas on credit forever.
Last year, the Energy Agency did not allow Srbijagas to correct the price of all these uncollected receivables, although the conditions for that were met due to the growth of the purchase price, which denied this public company revenues of an additional 20.8 million euros.
Vojislav Vuletic, the president of the Gas Association of Serbia, says that the problem of collecting debts for gas from large consumers will exist as long as the state is the owner of Srbijagas. And the same is the case with EPS. Therefore, no director of a public company can turn off electricity or gas to a company until the state gives the green light.
– Of course, that is not right with all other small consumers, who are expected to pay all their obligations on time because they will run out of gas. And to make matters worse, the state, which ignores the debts of large state-owned companies, insists that the socially endangered (who have the right to free electricity and gas) have all their bills paid in order to exercise the right to this assistance – says Vuletic, Politika reports.
