The Deputy Governor of Yugra was given the task of solving the issue.
ONF representatives expect cities and districts of Ugra to be closely examined for debts on housing and communal services owned by the municipal housing. They are anticipating a response from the deputy governor of Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug. Olga LitovaThe issue was detailed in Khanty-Mansiysk and other regions. However, residents of the district began publicly criticizing officials for not taking action, trying to shift responsibility to management companies and obstructing legal proceedings. ONF inspections could uncover non-compliance by city and regional authorities, as well as possible illegal schemes to hide municipal apartment debts.
The Public Council under the Department of Housing and Communal Complex and Energy of Yugra is pressing for municipalities to be held responsible for the debts of apartments owned by administrations.
The public initiative followed a report on the financial obligations of property users.
As of August 1, 2022, the district DepZhKH owed 7 billion rubles for heat, water supply, and sanitation, with 3.6 billion owed by the population and only 183 million by municipal residential property.
The communal market participants are puzzled by these figures, as they believe the district DepZhKH likely overlooked several hundred million.
“The reported figure is completely inaccurate, as management companies at a recent conference revealed court claims amounting to 19 million rubles for municipal residential premises in Surgut, and 5-million debt for 10 apartments. They also mentioned housing debts, suggesting the mayor’s offices control more than just ten apartments in Surgut.The chairman of the Public Council at DepZhKH Ugra raised the issue. Alexander Tarasenko.
However, the public utilities themselves say the Department of Municipal Property of the Administration of Khanty-Mansiysk is a good example in this situation. According to representatives of management companies and resource providers, the mayor’s office ignores all requests from public utilities for debts for municipal property.
“In May, the Northern Capital Management Company contacted the mayor’s office to report that in their buildings, a debt of nearly 800 thousand rubles for 25 municipal apartments had not been paid for over six months. At the same time, tenants did not approach the management company to sign contracts. In the letter, the public utilities said they couldn't collect the resulting debt because of this and asked for copies of the lease agreements, but were refused. However, the city administration had a similar stance regarding the requirement for the city’s depot to pay off the debts of municipal apartments,” – representatives of the housing and communal services market share information.
Representatives of local resource companies also talk about similar problems anonymously.
“There are over 3,000 municipal apartments in Khanty-Mansiysk. The annual debts of the city’s residential property amount to about 100 million rubles. It is quite difficult to collect them, as it is almost impossible to reach an agreement with the department of municipal property. The Criminal Code and resource persons do not fully have information on the property of the municipality, so there is sometimes no basis for legal action. However, based only on these figures, the scale of the problem is obvious. Hundreds of millions never reached the resource workers of Yugra,”industry experts say.
Public activists have already linked Deputy Governor of Yugra Olga Litova to the issue of outstanding debts of the KhMAO municipalities. It was suggested to her by the regional headquarters of the ONF in Yugra to conduct a full audit of the residential property of the administrations of cities and regions.
“Today we see officials’ inaction in this matter. Their stance is that there are housing tenants and they should demand payment from them. However, the municipality often does not even know who its tenants are or where they live. Some apartments are completely empty, accumulating debts that management companies then try to distribute among the residents. It is argued that there should be subsidiary liability – the authorities should pay for the debts of the tenants, and then deal with their tenants. Today, the Criminal Code suffers to a greater extent, as sometimes they do not risk going to court, as this may draw greater attention from officials and lead to visits from control and supervisory authorities,”experts of the regional ONF add.
Meanwhile, observers do not rule out that the wave of discontent raised by social activists has already provoked activity in local administrations.
“The first, apparently, realized the officials of Khanty-Mansiysk. A few days ago, the Deputy Mayor Natalya Dunaevskaya instructed the department of municipal property to compile lists of debtors of the administration’s service apartments. Whether to our head Maxim Ryashin Finally, the resource workers complained that the administration employees did not pay, or an order came from above, ” City officials added.
![Deputy Governor of Yugra Olga Litova]()
Deputy Governor of Yugra Olga Litova
Nevertheless, market participants are confident that the regional authorities will not soon be ready to announce the real figures of the communal debt for municipal housing. The reason is that DepZhKH owns only the information that the local authorities will send them.
“You have to understand that the distortion of figures can go on at different levels. For example, MP “ZHKU” in Khanty-Mansiysk, apparently, did not carry out accounting debts for five years, so that the annual results would not look so deadly. What to say about communal structures when you can just take the annual reports of some chapters? One gets the feeling that the numbers are simply taken from the ceiling, and if earlier they somehow tried to adjust them, now no one is doing this. Everyone has long understood – and who will check? – summarize the participants of the communal market.
