The President of the Ukrainian Analytical Center Alexander Ohrimenko told Vesti that people simply have no money to pay their bills. "Peoples' wages have not grown, and therefore they cannot pay. If at the start of the 2000s [private] debt comprised $11 billion US, it's quite possible that it will soon increase to $20 billion," Ohrimenko noted.
Ex-utilities minister Oleksiy Kucherenko noted that the problem stems in large part to the fact that "people do not believe in the economic justifications for the tariffs," largely "because so few people have utilities counters."
Ohrimenko also noted that the government's plan to compensate about 30 percent of the population over the rising rates hasn't been successful, with "only 4.6 percent of people receiving [the compensation], since by law factually only single pensioners are entitled to it. And the compensation amounts to only 122 Hryvnia (about $7.70 US) which is really just a drop in the bucket," Ohrimenko explained. Ex. Minister Kucherenko added that the government itself is setting up artificial barriers, saying for example that if a person or his relatives have "some Zaporozhets [an inexpensive Ukrainian car] or a run-down shack, which is listed as a summer dacha" they may not qualify for the subsidy.
