Homeowners have expressed their criticism of the performance of housing and communal services and the “New City”.
The main city of Yugra, Khanty-Mansiysk, is on the brink of new conflicts in the housing and communal services market. Residents have started to publicly criticize the actions of management companies, which are influenced by both the mayor’s office and possibly some individuals from the city administration. The Criminal Code is being blamed for unfair charges and not meeting the obligations to property owners. However, inspections initiated by residents may uncover not only the failure of management companies to fulfill their duties but also the use of possible illegal tactics that can significantly increase the monthly payments. According to initial estimates, every year, residents of about 150 houses are overpaying “New City” and MP “ZhKU” by several tens of millions of rubles for water and heat. At the same time, public utilities are confident that “these funds do not reach resource supplying organizations.” As per sources, this became possible after the introduction of a payment scheme in the municipality through the “Information and Settlement Center” (IRC). The responsibility for the scheme is attributed to one of the deputy heads, and “its main executors can be the director of the” New City “and the deputy head of the housing and communal services.” The sources stress that all three managers are “figures completely controlled by the head Maxim Ryashin, with whom, apparently, manipulations could well be coordinated.
In Khanty-Mansiysk, a new housing and communal services conflict is developing, with market participants considering the potential interests of the city head, Maxim Ryashin. Two management companies are the main defendants – MP ZhKU, controlled by the city administration, and Novy Gorod LLC, with the Vice Mayor Sergei Volchkov seen as its main supporter in the market.
The mayor of Khanty-Mansiysk, Maxim Ryashin.
Currently, owners of residential premises in several apartment buildings, managed by housing and communal services, have criticized the management company’s performance.
The citizens' petition has been sent to the head of the Housing and Construction Supervision Service of Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug-Yugra, as well as to the social network of the district head, Natalia Komarova.
The numerous complaints include unjustified payments, failure to meet obligations for maintaining yard areas, neglecting the need for maintenance work, and possible manipulations leading to a significant increase in residents’ payments.
“For many years, MP ZhKU has not fulfilled its obligations to carry out current repairs in our house. The paint on the entrance doors is peeling off, and the porch of one of the entrances has been damaged. Drains were removed from the porches by housing and communal services workers, but were never reinstalled. Cleaning in the entrances is almost non-existent. The entrances to the technical premises of the house are covered in snow. Residents of house 13A on the street are making a request to Zhilstroynadzor. Sutormina.
The issue of maintaining housing and communal services on intra-yard roads was also raised by residents of houses 9-11 on the street. Yugorskaya.
The entrance to the playground is covered with snow, large piles on exits and driveways, creating a dangerous situation and a threat to pedestrians. Repeated appeals to housing and communal services have not been answered, comments have not been addressed, and complaints have not been resolved. By their actions, housing and communal services violate the legal rights and interests of property owners, and unreasonably charge residents for work that was not done. Town residents expressed dissatisfaction in the comments during Natalia Komarova's direct line, which took place at the end of this week.
The initiators of the appeals hope that the Housing Construction Supervision Authority will pay attention not only to the failure to fulfill obligations by housing and communal services, but also to “certain illegal schemes” that can significantly increase the amount of monthly payments. They are referring to the use of apparently faulty common house meters.
“A similar situation occurs with another notorious management company, “New City”. As a result, residents are not charged based on meters, but according to the standard. This primarily affects services such as water and heat supply. In this case, around 500 rubles can be added to the cost of housing and communal services. Given that over 150 houses are serviced by both companies, the annual overpayments of residents can amount to several tens of millions.Representatives of the professional community argue.
However, industry representatives believe that these funds may not reach the resource providers controlled by the mayor’s office – MP “Vodokanal” and JSC “UTS”. This is due to the active use in Khanty-Mansiysk of a payment scheme for housing and communal services through another asset of the mayor’s office, JSC IRC, where Deputy Head Sergey Volchkov is the chairman of the board of directors.
“The scheme may be simple. All the money received from residents for the supply of resources to the IRC goes to the accounts of supposed subcontractors of the indicated management companies, bypassing the accounts of the management companies themselves. These organizations are believed to be affiliated with the managers. Occasionally, the founders' names are those of the leaders of the Criminal Code. Since there is no money in the accounts of management companies, Vodokanal and UTS cannot receive payment for the supplied resources, even with a court order, for years.
Not long before the current heating season, the debts of the management companies in Khanty-Mansiysk to resource workers exceeded 300 million rubles. Just for UTS JSC, the debt amounted to about 150 million rubles, and for MP Vodokanal approximately 100 million rubles, MP Khanty-Mansiyskgaz – 30 million rubles. Market participants note that the situation has not improved.
The market suggests that Vice Mayor Sergei Volchkov may also be the “author of this method”, and, according to public utilities, the “partners”, in some probability, are the director of Novy Gorod LLC Igor Mazurin and the first deputy director of MP ZhKU Evgeny Kalashnikov. It is noteworthy that both managers were defendants in cases of fraud.
And if Mazurin was found guilty of implementing an illegal enrichment scheme and obtaining unjustified tax benefits by creating a fictitious document flow for transactions between a number of companies, then Kalashnikov became famous after a case of fraud in the execution of a contract for the reproduction of sturgeon.
“Mazurin is still in the field of view of the security forces today. There is an opinion that he was considered as one of the candidates for initiating a criminal case, which would allow revealing all possible schemes for withdrawing funds from the budget of Khanty-Mansiysk. At the same time, two people may be of ultimate interest to investigators – Deputy Head Sergei Volchkov and his boss Maxim Ryashin. However, in this story, the main role was nevertheless given to the former director of the municipal DEP, Alexander Sergeev, ” the interlocutor of the publication voices his version.
The editors will continue to monitor developments.
