Infocom will review water bills for September and October if the re-distributed amounts exceed 2 cu m, the Chisinau City Hall announced in a press release.
In September, a 2013 law on water supply and sewer service took effect, providing that the cost of the difference between the readings of the common water meter installed at to the entrance to apartment blocks, also known as connection meter, and the readings reported by individual consumers shall be evenly shared among the individual consumers in the block. However, a cost sharing, or re-distribution mechanism was not yet adopted. In the first months of the new provisions, some consumers had to pay large amounts in addition to what their meters read.
In response to the ensuing consumers' complaints, the City Hall has ruled that until a legal mechanism is established, re-distributed amounts must not exceed 2 cu m for each cold and hot water.
For those consumers who reported zero consumption in their bills, calculation will be based on the average consumption for the previous three months. For those who reported zero consumption for two or more consecutive months, computation will be based on Chisinau's average for the previous month. If consumers can prove that their consumption was indeed zero, they may ask the block manager to inspect the meters and send a report to the bill processing utility Infocom for review.
Block managers have been instructed to convene general meetings with the residents to discuss these issues.
Infocom director Ion Margineanu has told IPN that block managers will have to record the water amounts which remain un-re-distributed, to be later settled when a regulation supplementing the law comes out. Margineanu says in the last month only 5% of the difference between connection and individual meter readings could not be re-distributed and was recorded as owed by the apartment blocks.
