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The Ministry of Energy will also check how the district heating company and the heating accountants have calculated the balance bills of the residents of Sofia for the last heating season. The deadline for objections to the accounts is extended to September 30, which generally expires on August 31. This was announced by the ministry on Wednesday, shortly after the start of the meeting of the parliamentary subcommittee to control the work of the energy regulator, dedicated to the mess with heating bills in Sofia.
The municipal company was used to explaining how citizen complaints arose. The CEO of the company Alexander Alexandrov explained that the calculations are accurate and there are no errors in the calculation of the heating system compensation bills. Even before the Ministry of Energy announced the extension of the period for submitting complaints, it called on all customers who have doubts about their bills to file objections and ask for explanations. For this, a special group was created, which responded to the people as quickly as possible.
Complaints were less than half a percent of subscribers
Alexandrov noted that the complaints against the compensation accounts received by them before September 8 were from 1953, of which 1,157 were redirected to respond to the heat meters. “With more than 200 complaints filed with the ombudsman and 111 with the Energy and Water Regulatory Commission, complaints come from about half a percent of our customers,” Alexandrov said.
He added that the balance bills delivered by the heat meters would be reviewed, “but we can guarantee that there is no problem with our billing system,” said the head of the municipal company.
As a potential problem, he pointed out the discrepancy between the amounts delivered by the heating meters for return or additional payment and those claimed by district heating, which was explained by the fact that the distribution companies do not have information on the payments made to district heating during the reporting period. “The job of heat meters is to provide information on quantities and from then on it is our job to calculate what customers really owe based on their distribution based on their distribution, taking into account all the history of Payments”.Alexandrov commented.
Everyone wants simple and clear accounts
“We are not saying that everything is flowers and roses”he told reporters. “There is a specific point, the retroactive return (of the amounts of the reduction in the price of natural gas and heat), which makes the process more difficult to control. I, as a director of the company and as a consumer, am not happy with what is happening. “he said.
According to him, the company will ask the next heating season to change the general conditions for simpler and more understandable bills. At the moment, the information for customers on a monthly basis, the forecast report and the equal monthly installments were different.
Alexandrov also explained that the company decided to return the amounts paid overpaid due to the cheaper gas with the June bill, and not wait for the match. “Make people equal and help them at the time of the serious consequences of the measures against the coronavirus.” “And there was political talk that people’s money should be recovered as soon as possible.”he admitted.
Three months of flight
The head of the company and president of its board of directors, Ivaylo Epitropov, also explained the case of the solid sums for additional payment by subscribers with equal monthly installments, which add up to a total of 9 thousand. According to both, everything is correct there too and the current accounts have been reached for a change compared to this equalizing season.
They admitted that they had communication problems with the explanations of the accounts and assured that they were working in that regard.
As the company explained to Mediapool earlier in the day, the problem is that for customers on equal monthly installments, the detection periods for heat meters and district heating for payment matching do not match. Toplofikacia Sofia denied that there was a problem with the billing system, which was introduced in March 2020 as the latest module of the SAP ERP system for full utility company support.
The discrepancy is that the heat meters, when detecting the heat meters after the heating is stopped, take into account the period from May 1 of the previous year to the end of April of the same year. For example, 01.05.2019 – 30.04.2020. Based on the appliance data, the difference between the estimated amounts accumulated based on the consumption of the previous heating season, multiplied by the heating prices in effect in the reported period, is calculated and the actual amounts owed by consumers are obtained – in more or more -small than those paid by them during the previous period.
However, for people who prefer the most convenient, in principle equal monthly installments, the deadline for detection is August 1 of the previous year, at the end of July of this year. This actually results in a three-month interval: May, June, and July of the current year. According to Epitropov, so far for these three months, the estimated amounts have been offset, as the actual report has been completed. Therefore, instead of having 11 withdrawals and the twelfth account balance for these customers, there are three months left until the next heating season.
Salted for clients to comply with accounting standards
Now this previous practice, which was a violation of the VAT Law and accounting rules, has been stopped and now customers will be accurately reported in equal installments. Thus, the large amounts are obtained for additional payment, because at this time – when there is no heating, the accrued invoice is higher than the real one and the company has so far discounted the amounts paid in excess from the total invoice. Now this is not done and the amount owed remains high.
“In a nutshell: we have agreed to pay me 100 BGN and I am issuing you an invoice for 50 BGN or 150 BGN. This is no longer the case.”Alexandrov said and explained why only the monthly fee owed on the accounts of people with equal contributions is indicated. According to him, the situation with these three months will affect next year.
“Toplofikatsiya-Sofia’s calculations are accurate,” declared the representatives of the municipal company and promised to respond quickly and in detail to each complainant and explain the billing.
National Ombudsman Diana Kovacheva raised the issue of not issuing invoices to clients and sending only messages to invoices. She proposed to the energy regulator forcing the company to issue actual bills to its domestic customers at least once a year.
“The differences between final invoice messages and billing receipts people receive are absolutely confusing. The information is massive and nothing is understood about it.”she said. According to her, this violates the European directive on clear accounts with graphics.
Unclear, delayed and unappealable invoices
Kovacheva draws the EWRC’s attention to the fact that in milder winters and lower natural gas prices, offset bills have risen significantly compared to the previous season, even in buildings with energy-efficient measures.
“While the explanation for the high bills in March was that they were formed on the basis of estimated consumption, now the amounts must be calculated on the basis of the actual report of household appliances,” noted the public defender.
It also alerts on settlement accounts received after the deadline for complaints and delays in the paper notices of monthly invoices, in which there is no stamp with the delivery date and people lose the right to appeal or use a discount when paying to weather.
Epitropov admitted that there is a problem with the delivery of notices on paper, but explained that the company intends to extend the functionality of its website and all the detailed data of each subscriber so that it is available there.
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