Ukrainians can massively lose utility benefits — what is important to know

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In the government, specialists from the Ministry of Social Policy have developed a draft law designed to significantly reduce the costs of financing benefits and subsidies for housing and communal services. This will become possible thanks to the deprivation of assistance from debtors.

Deprivation of beneficiary debtors of the right to assistance

This is a draft law entitled “On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine Regarding Provision of Benefits for Payment of Housing and Communal Services” (2335).

The document proposes to establish the obligation of citizens-beneficiaries to pay housing bills every month. – communal services.

Are the conditions for granting benefits in case of non-payment for housing and communal services determined in accordance with the procedure established by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine? – it is noted in the project.

The authors of the initiative emphasized in the explanatory note that the government allocates about 40 billion hryvnias to the state budget every year to cover social support of citizens in the payment of communal services, which is provided as housing subsidies or benefits. Only in 2024, about 17 billion hryvnias have been allocated for the provision of benefits and over 30 billion hryvnias for subsidies. Benefits and subsidies are provided only in cash through the bodies of the Pension Fund.

On the part of the state, everything necessary has been done to support Ukrainians who are unable to fully pay for communal services, but many citizens, on the other hand, have an unscrupulous attitude to the requirement of payment for received services.

Thus, according to the PFU, as of the end of the summer of the current year, the total amount of debt owed by citizens who receive state assistance for the payment of utility services reached 733 million hryvnias. become the absence of debt for the payment of housing and communal services services consumed or the existence of a concluded restructuring agreement for its partial payment.

The draft act proposes to introduce changes to the laws of Ukraine, which provide for the provision of benefits to citizens for the payment of housing and communal services, in particular, to determine that privileged categories of citizens are obliged to pay monthly the cost of actually consumed housing and communal services, and the conditions for granting benefits in case of non-payment for housing and communal services are determined in accordance with the procedure established by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, the document states.