Level of payments for heat down about 25%

The level of payments for heat during the 2009-2010 heating season decreased by 20-25% to only 49.3%, the commercial director of Termocom SA Mihai Arusoi said at Monday's meeting of the Chisinau services and subdivisions. During the 2008-2009 heating season, the level of payments was 93.8%, together with the 36 million lei paid by the Chisinau City Hall for compensations for heat, Info-Prim Neo reports. According to Arusoi, heat consumers' debts to Termcoom now total 609 million lei. 477 million lei of this sum is the debt of the housing stock. “The company continues to sustain losses as the heating tariff remained 542 lei per gigacalorie,” Arusoi said. “However, we work under a normal regime and supply by 500 gigacalories an hour. About 105 million lei was collected in November, but the deadline for payments is December 31 plus 10 days. We hope that the level of payments will rise by then.” Deputy mayor Vlad Cotet and the head of the Public Amenities Division Petru Gontea confirmed that the heat is supplied according to the ordinary regime and there are no complaints from the population. In 2009, the Chisinau City hall allocated 15 million lei to Termocom for the compensations for heat paid to the population. 17,034 persons benefited from such compensations in November. The compensations that are to be paid total 2.2 million lei, but about 3,000 applications expect to be examined by the City Council. Under the new Code of Administrative Offenses, the private individuals who do not pay for heat during over six months are liable to a fine of 200 lei, while the legal entities – of 2,000 lei.