CHARGED WATER: RESIDENTS IN VANADZOR PROTEST AGAINST THE OLD DEBTS
- A 72 year old resident of Vanadzor is intending to sue the regional water company which demands from the resident to pay the old debt for the water expenses. Rafik Malkhasyan got a reminder notification from the Lori-Water and Sewage Closed Joint Stock Company last month, warning the resident that if he does not pay in a five day period the required amount of 26,000 drams ($86), the sum will be confiscated in legal form.
“They have brought this [the notification] to rob me,” tells Malkhasyan anxiously. “The income of my family of eight - 56,000 drams ($186), is made of the pension and poverty allowance, and the family is obliged to pay half of it to the water company,” says the man, assuring that he pays for the water he uses every month.
Malkhasyan’s indignation is echoed by some 10,000 residents of Vanadzor, who also are required to pay the old debts.
Three months ago the Lori water company began sending debt reminder notifications all across Vanadzor (the administrative town with 100,000 population of Lori marz), but in many cases instead of the required sums the company had been getting complaints of the residents.
The water company management claims that the residents forgot the favor the government did several years ago, when it prolonged the terms of paying debts accumulated in 2000-2002.
The law of the Republic of Armenia on payment advantages in regard to the existing responsibilities for the services of water supply, in force since December 2002 allowed for termination of obligations on the side of the drinking water consumers.
“The condition of taking advantage of the privileges provided by law was the contract on debt refund singed with the company providing water supply services,” says Norayr Baghramyan, head of the department for legal advice of the Lori-Water and Sewage Closed Joint Stock Company. “The contract gave the subscribers opportunity to pay the remaining part of the annulled debt within six months.”
Besides the offered contract the government has fully annulled the debts accumulated before January 2000. The subscribers were also partially waived from the debts between that period and 2002, the day the law came into force. The government was annulling the accumulated debts for people getting poverty allowances in case of 15 to 30 percent payment of the debt depending on the water supply schedule. The rest of the debtors were to be waived from part of the debt paying 30 to 50 percent depending on the supply schedule.
“The deadline for the fulfillment of the signed contracts was July 2004,” says the lawyer.
“It meant that the subscribers who did not pay the remaining sum after the expiration of the contract were obliged to pay for the old debts.” (The law does not refer to those citizens who had not signed the contract.)
Margar Gevorgyan, commercial director of the water company says that the number of the subscribers to their company makes 37,000 and 23,000 of them signed the contract.
About 13,000 of those who were partially waived from the debts by the contract paid the rest of the sum in due time, while the remaining 10,000 subscribers did not manage to get the advantage given by the government and remained indebted to the water company.
The debt owed to the company by the subscribers now makes 289 million drams ($950,000).
The Lori-Water and Sewage Closed Joint Stock Company tries to explain notifications on the debts and their reimbursement in legal form have been sent only to the debtors. However, many of the residents in the town disagree with the figures submitted by the water company and don’t consider themselves debtors at all.
The sum of the debt sent to Vanadzor resident Mkhitar Mkhitaryan is 85,000 drams ($280). But the man insists he could not have debt, because the district he lives in was lacking water supply in those years.
Meanwhile the company asserts it supports the subscribers and reviews the old debts in case of necessity. In case the sides come to an agreement they draw a schedule for payment; otherwise the problem is solved in court.
Company lawyer Baghramyan says there have been 108 cases filed with the Lori court of first instance this year demanding confiscation of about 13 million drams ($ 43,000) in total.
Part of the cases refers to the confiscations of the debts – with a significant number of cases on the confiscation of recent debts; 32 ongoing cases have been satisfied resulting in about 4 million drams ($13,000) transferred to the account of the company. Neither of the debt cases solved has been made in favor of subscribers so far.
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