Additions from Azersu to cover losses

Baku/08.12.21/Turan: Turan: Kamal Ali, a resident of the Saray bagları cottage area, is building a house, and there is still a long way to go before he moves in. Last year, in the presence of Azersu workers, he zeroed out the meter. The previous owner of the land paid his debt.

As there are no residents in the house, there are only craftsmen who use water for making tea and sometimes kneading solutions, the water consumption is insignificant - bills for 10-20 manats a month came.

And in April the controller suddenly pinned to the door a bill with a debt of 600 manats. After correspondence with an employee of the Sumgayit Water Department, and sending him a picture of the meter via WhatsApp, the employee replied with apologies: "system error, the bill has been cancelled".

It was fine until autumn. But in October this year again a mythical bill came for 190 AZN, although the meter showed 41 cubic meters of water. The controller, who had issued the bill, said he had read the readings from the meter, and the overload was caused by the system. The controller suggested that the subscriber clarify the problem with the Department, as he has no authority to change the system data.

At the Water Department in Sumgayit, the deputy head's office checked the computer database and it turned out that the bill for 190 manat was illegal.  The deputy head told Kamal Ali that the controller would be punished for the mistake.

The story with the two "mistakes" could have been forgotten, as "it happens to anybody." However, this November the same citizen received the third bill for the used water which again contained the same figure - AZN 190 in debt.

After listening to the subscriber's cries of anger, the Water Department checked the readings and told the citizen:  "our employee's mistake, she didn't press the yes key".

Now he is waiting for the fourth, fifth receipt, in which they can specify any mythical amount. Kamal Ali thinks about going to court in Sumgayit to put an end to the bullying by Azersu.

During the hours he spent in the corridors of this Department he witnessed confusion and chaos, no queue of subscribers, the desire of some visitors to shout down others, and the confusion of female employees who receive visitors. The Sumgayit Department works like a Soviet ZHEK - no contemporary methods of organizing work have been introduced, and subscribers have to go there in person to solve any problem. Despite the pandemic, nothing is solved there in online regime.

The simple problem - to re-register subscriber agreements from previous owners of two land plots - Kamal Ali has been solving there for the third week, personally sitting in queues among nervous and tired visitors.  Meanwhile, bureaucratic procedures can be resolved very quickly if the management is willing. The same citizen had an easy way to re-register the agreement with the gas company: he gave the controller of the gas authority the copies of identity card and extracts from the State Register of Immovable Property at his door. That is all!  From the next month, the gas bills will be sent to the current, not the former, owner of the estate.

Fictitious bills are a common practice throughout Azerbaijan.  Russian-speaking residents of Baku in Disput.az in 2019 created a forum "Lawlessness in Azersu", where they shared their experiences of dealing with falsifiers from the Water Department.

A boob shared: "I wrote a complaint to prezident.az about a fictitious account and also went to Azersu on Tabriz street. A woman asked meaningfully: did you apply to someone? Our boss came and said to sort out the account.  As a result, the bill was corrected, and now for the first time in a long time they owe me a few manats, not me to them. So, people, the president's website, if not always responsive, they do their job silently, and that's the most important thing!

In the Sumgayit Water Department Kamal Ali was  explained the three cases of inflated bills for used water by "system errors". Why, if their system tends to make mistakes, does it always do it for the benefit of the Department but not the subscribers? 

The answer should be sought in the well-known fact of annual loss-making activity of water monopolist Azersu. According to the financial statements of this organization, the net loss of Azersu by the end of 2020 was AZN 323.222 million which is down 45.6% from 2019.  By sending fake bills to subscribers with attributed debts, the Azersu OJSC hopes to receive some mythical debts and thus cover with its real debt formed as a result of incompetence and corruption of the management. -0-