Nusrat Gasimov: "Fees for gas not paid by the population of the capital increase by 10% every year"

According to N.Gasimov, 11.912 million cubic metres of gas is delivered to Baku city daily and this is a record indicator for the last 15 years, APA informs.

"About 4 million people live in Baku at present and 1 million 700 thousand of them were registered. And if bread is sold, wedding houses work, all public catering establishments operate and no one is frozen because of cold in the city, it means that the city is supplied with gas," N.Gasimov stressed.

The BakGaz official said that their main problem is that fees for gas are not paid and added that only 7% of gas consumed by the non-privileged population category in Azizbayov region, 9% in Sabunchu, 12% in Surakhani, 17% in Sabayel, and 16% in Binagadi are paid for at present. Only 15 thousand of 64 thousand subscribers in Khatai region pay for gas. In general, fees for gas not paid by the population has already reached AZM340 billion and this indicator increases from year to year. Mainly industrial establishments and non-state enterprises pay for gas in a complete form.

N.Gasimov said that the price for 1 cubic meter of gas sold to the population is AZM236 at present and this price is very cheaper than those in the neighboring countries: "We are paid fees for 26 cubic metres without gas-meters per capita in winter and for 18 cubic metres in summer. We collected AZM8.437 billion or 17% fees for gas in December last year. This year we do not hope to collect even 12% of fees for gas we sell. In general, total volume of accounts receivable and payable exceeds AZM678 billion. Only 44 thousand residents of the capital owe BakGaz in range from AZM1 million to AZM10 million and their aggregate debt exceeds AZM100 billion. 811 persons have already been brought actions against and names of 15-18 persons are deleted from this list every month. As to villas, there are 2611 villas in Baku and they paid only 46% of their debts amounting to AZM266 million. Their debts exceed AZM1.6 billion."

Accordign to N.Gasimov, some problems occur in gas supply because of reasons not depending on the Office. So, over 20 new residential settlements were established in Baku. However, construction of engineering structures was not taken into account in any of these settlements: "For example, dairy and vine-growing state farms, Mushvig, Dede Gorgud, Shankhay settlements were established and the gas equipment knows nothing about engineering structures of those residential settlements. It leads to problems independent of us."