You're reading: Parliament passes bill restructuring debts of heating supply companies

Verkhovna Rada has passed a bill settling debts of heating supply companies for consumed energy.

Bill No. 5273 was adopted at second reading by 245 lawmakers.

“I want to say: debts are not waived, they are rescheduled. Only fines are written off if the debt restructuring agreement is implemented,” Deputy Chairperson of the parliamentary committee for construction, town-planning, housing and utilities Olena Babak said, presenting the document.

She said that the adoption of the document would help to unblock economic operations of heating supply companies, lift arrest of their assets and current accounts and stop accruing fines and penalty for energy.

As reported, according to national joint-stock company Naftogaz Ukrainy, fine, penalty sanctions for tardy payments for consumed gas by heating supply companies totaled Hr 2.6 billion as of Jan. 1, 2016 and grew 1.7-fold in first half 2016, to Hr 4.5 billion.