“We have worked to reduce tariffs for 10 subjects of natural monopolies in the field of heat supply in the amount of 4.4 billion tenge. These are the cities of Astana, Almaty, Akmola, Almaty, West Kazakhstan, Zhambyl, Karaganda and East Kazakhstan regions. At the moment, tariffs have been reduced. A compensating tariff has been introduced,” the minister said.

In addition, similar decisions were taken with respect to services for the transmission and supply of electric energy in 14 monopolists for 12.1 billion tenge. These are cities of republican significance, Pavlodar, Karaganda, Atyrau, Aktobe, Akmola, East Kazakhstan, Almaty, Kyzylorda, West Kazakhstan regions.

“Decisions on these regions have already been taken, a compensating tariff has been introduced, and returns are currently being made to consumers,” said Suleimenov.

Speaking about the procedure of returning money to the consumer for overpayment or unforeseen savings of monopolists, the Minister of National Economy noted that this practice existed before.

“It has always been. We did not have such a situation that somewhere when the monopolist received an unexpected income and then he did not return it. Standardly, according to the results of the execution of the tariff estimate and the investment program, if we identify errors, overpayments, non-fulfillment, violations, then we include a temporary compensating tariff in the amount of the savings received for the next period. Thus, conditionally, if the base tariff was 15 tenge, the violations that the monopolist committed in the past period amounted to 3 tenge, then the base tariff is reduced by the corresponding 3 tenge. The tariff for the next 12 months is set at 12 tenge. This practice has always existed. We actively used it,” the minister noted.

According to the ministry, in 2017 the Antimonopoly Committee temporarily introduced a compensating tariff of 17 billion tenge to various monopolists. At the end of 2015, this amount was about 4 billion tenge, in 2016 — about 6 billion tenge.

The minister stressed that the refund was always and will continue to be made. At the same time, the temporary compensating tariff should be clear for all citizens. To do this, it is proposed to include a new column in the receipt of the Unified Settlement Center.

“We want this to be seen not just at the level of the decision of the Antimonopoly body and the monopolist itself. In the receipts that we receive from the Unified Settlement Center, where it says ‘Electricity cost,’ ‘Number of kilowatts consumed’ and ‘Amount payable,’ so that it would be approximately like in the bills in the cafe where there is ‘Total amount,’ ‘Discount’ and then ‘Sum payable.’ When we introduce a temporary compensating tariff, we want to show it for all of us, for our understanding, as a minus in the receipts,” the minister explained.

The necessary changes to the regulations are being worked out. It is planned that from Jan. 1, 2019, a temporary compensating tariff will be included in the utility receipt as a minus of the amount and will be visible to consumers