Baku / 05.09.17 / Turan: In a number of settlements in the Baku Agglomeration (includes the Absheron district and the Sumgait city), as well as other cities, towns and districts, people are looking forward to the end of the summer. Since the heat begins to retreat, cold water has begun to come under a relatively high pressure to their homes. But there are also numerous families forced to save on water after the government raised tariffs for it by 38% in May 2016.
According to the State Statistics Committee, for the first seven months of this year, the state monopolist for water supply and sewerage services supplied the population and other consumer groups with 125.6 million cubic meters (mcm) of water. This is 20.2 mcm or 13.9% less than in the same period last year. Serious accidents and water supply restrictions were not officially reported. The volume of water sales and wastewater treatment amounted to 169.7 million manats. In current prices, this is 19.8% higher than in January-July 2016. However, in stable prices, that is, without taking tariff increase into account, the revenues decreased by 1.1%.
Water supply is the only sphere of public services where the financial relationship between the supplier and the consumer has not yet been completely regulated. Approximately one third of the consumers (445,000 customers), including commercial entities, are supplied water without meters used. According to local experts, this creates quite favorable conditions for corruption in the JSC Azersu system. Investigations of Turan IA accompanied by legal proceedings revealed facts of corruption in the purchase and installation of water meters. It turned out that water meters were purchased and installed at a price of 240 manats each in 2016, which is several times higher than the real prices for this device and the service. The work was carried out by dummy companies.
JSC Azersu does not disclose financial statements for 2016 and does not provide information on water meters installed in January-August 2017. The water company does not respond to Turan IA"s inquiries about this. -------08B
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