Bill on debt settlement on electricity market passes second reading

The Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament, has passed bill No. 2386 on the settlement of accounts payable and receivable on the wholesale electricity market, as well as on terminating operations of the wholesale electricity supplier. The bill tabled for the second reading was backed by 243 MPs with the required minimum being 226 votes. As UNIAN reported earlier, the relevant bill passed its first reading on April 30, 2020. Rapporteur for the bill, Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Energy, Housing and Utilities Andriy Gerus said that the legislation introduces the following tools of debt repayment: mutual settlement; debt repayment (write-off); and assignment of claim or replacement of a party to the obligation. According to Gerus, the bill will help address financial issues that arose at the state-run nuclear power giant Energoatom, which operates the country's nuclear power plants. The company will be able to receive UAH 11 billion (US$411 million) in the form of government domestic loan bonds. The explanatory note says that, as of August 31, 2019, the receivables of the operator of Ukraine's wholesale electricity market Energorynok amounted to UAH 30.9 billion (US$1.1 billion), of which the debt that arose after the introduction of Ukraine's electricity retail market in the first half of 2019 was UAH 2.4 billion (US$89.6 million). Energorynok's payables stood at UAH 28.1 billion (US$1 billion). The main causes behind the arrears were the following: lack of full reimbursement of coal production costs to coal-mining enterprises from the national budget; low payment discipline at water supply and sewerage enterprises; and poor payment discipline of electricity consumers in the Russian-occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions in eastern Ukraine.

Bill on debt settlement on electricity market passes second reading

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