The budget is not enough to save municipal assets
Dozens of municipal housing and communal services enterprises in the Sverdlovsk region were not ready for the heating season. In anticipation of the start-up of heat, the boiler houses of municipal unitary enterprises remain de-energized due to debts to the electricity supplier. The total amount of overdue obligations of these organizations, according to EnergosbyT Plus, exceeds half a billion rubles. The management of the supplier of last resort states that most of them are already in a pre-bankruptcy state, and “it makes no sense to supply electricity that is guaranteed not to be paid for.” One way or another, power engineers will sooner or later have to connect problem consumers, but this will happen only in two cases: when repaying or restructuring the debt, or when low temperatures set in, when the lack of heating in cities will threaten the introduction of a state of emergency. The Ministry of Housing and Public Utilities of the Sverdlovsk Region annually tries to plug holes in the municipal utilities through multimillion-dollar subsidies, but the high deterioration of the infrastructure, lack of tariffs and ineffective management do not allow them to turn the situation around. The problem results in serious utility failures in winter, and hundreds of consumers are left without heat.
The Sverdlovsk branch of EnergosbyT Plus JSC (part of T Plus) limited power supply to 27 heat supply municipal enterprises for debts on electricity. In total, these heating and water utilities underpaid the energy sector by 641.1 million rubles.
Organizations for which the supplier of last resort has introduced restrictions on electricity consumption are located in the urban districts: Alapaevsk, Artemovsky, Asbestovsky, the working village of Atig, Achitsky, Beloyarsky, Volchansky, Gornouralsky, Ivdelsky, Kamensky, Kamyshlovsky, Karpinsk, Klenovskoye joint venture, Krasnoturinsk, Malyshevsky , Makhnevskoye, Nevyansk, Rezhevskoy, Sukhoi Log, Taborinskoye, Tavdinsky and Turinsky.
As the director for work with accounts receivable of the Sverdlovsk branch of EnergosbyT Plus told Pravda UrFO Dmitry Prilezhaevit makes no sense for the company to supply additional electricity that will not be paid for. According to the manager, in the end, municipal utility assets, as a rule, go bankrupt, and the lost money falls on conscientious customers.
Let us remind you that the heating season in the Sverdlovsk region starts this week, and in the northern territories the heating has already been launched earlier. Thus, boiler houses enter the winter without electricity, which, as municipalities say, complicates their preparation.
Meanwhile, the situation with debts in housing and communal services is becoming more critical every year. Thus, according to the guaranteeing supplier, the debt for electricity of all legal entities in the region is estimated at approximately 4.8 billion rubles, of which 3.2 billion is accounted for by water utilities and heat supply enterprises. The greatest problems today are concentrated in Severouralsk, Verneya and Nizhnyaya Salda, as well as Rezha and Ivdel.
The regional Ministry of Housing and Public Utilities is trying to plug holes in the economy of municipal unitary enterprises with subsidies from the regional budget, but there are not enough funds for this. In 2024, the money was brought to 38 territories, but the total tranches turned out to be 2 times less than a year earlier. In total, 350 million rubles were allocated for these purposes, 200 of which were spent on settlements with gas companies, mainly Uralsevergaz (70% owned by PJSC Rosneft, the remaining 30% by the regional government), another 150 to pay for coal supplies from the joint-stock company “Supply and Sales Administration of the Sverdlovsk Region” (USS, controlled by MUGISO). However, settlements of debts for electricity were not mentioned here.
Thus, taking into account the limits set by the Ministry of Finance of the Sverdlovsk Region, the Ministry of Housing and Communal Services was able to satisfy municipal requests only by half, since the municipal requests that were recognized as justified included an amount of 783 million rubles.
At the same time, the deterioration of the municipal housing and communal services infrastructure in certain territories of the Middle Urals reaches 100%, which leads to huge financial and technical losses and requires large one-time investments. About 11.5 thousand kilometers of pipelines for various purposes need replacement. Thus, in a year in the region no more than 1-2% of networks change, but at the same time another 3% are recognized as emergency.
