Who Will Pay Gas And Electric Bills?

IDPs Were Scared by Bills Winter And Gori-Gas

Tea Tedliashvili, Gori

IDPs, living in Karaleti settlement, have already got communal bills. Those bills have worried the settlers. Most of them are complaining they cannot pay the bills, because 95 % of the IDPs are unemployed. They are afraid soon Energo-Pro-Georgia will also distribute bills.

Before now, the USAID was covering their communal bills. But hereinafter the IDPs are afraid they will have to pay all the expenses. Otherwise, the bills were not distributed in their settlement.

Elza Bliadze:”We received bills, but have not paid anything. How we will pay? If anyone comes we will show the bills. When we inquired at the Gori Gas Distribution Company why they had brought the bills, they said they had not done it. I do not know who did it but every family has received the bill”.

IDPs are afraid they will not be able to pay gas bills in winter, because they are going to warm cottages with  gas, and it will hit large sums.

We applied to Guja Beruashvili, the head of the Gori Gas Distribution Company, who said they started distribution of the bills in order to learn how much gas is spent by one IDP family a month. The bills were not distributed last months, so they could not estimate average amount of the gas spent by one family. According to Guja Beruashvili they started the calculation in August. Beuashvili says the USAID covers their bills but nobody knows who will pay those bills in future.

The situation is same in other 5 settlements (Karaleti, Metekhi, Shavshvebi, Skra, Berbuki). The USAID paid the bills including May for the IDPs in every settlement. Giorgi Balakhashvili, representative of Public Relation Agency of the Gori Office of the Energo-Pro-Georgia, said the Ministry of Energy has paid electricity bills of IDPs for the last three months. According to Giorgi Balakhashvili, their company is not going to distribute bills while the ministry pays their bills. If the ministry refuses to pay the expenses, the company will start to register the used electricity and IDPs will have to pay the bills.

Manana Manjgaladze, the head of Shida Kartli and Samtskhe-Javakheti Department of the Energo-Pro-Georgia, said donors and ministries partially paid electricity bills before August. Now they do not know who will pay the bills of the IDPs.

“I do not know exactly how the bills will be paid. It is regulated by the central authority. They will find the sums. I do not think the IDPs will have to pay the fees. The ministry pays the bills of old IDPs including 100kw; but if they spend more, the IDPs have to be extra sums. Gasification did not happen with old IDPs. It is not settled about the new IDPs yet,” said Manana Chumburidze.

It is unclear who will pay the bills for IDPs.. Although nobody has demanded the IDPs to pay the bills, they are afraid the victimized people will have to pay everything despite the funding of several millions.