The Cabinet of Ministers set up a working group for tackling the crisis in the housing and utility sector on November 18.

Minister of Housing and Utility Services Oleksii Kucherenko announced this during a teleconference on the progress of the heating season.

Vitalii Haiduk, the head of Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s group of advisers, was appointed as the head of the working group.

The working group was set up within the Ministry of Housing and Utility Services.

According to Kucherenko, members of the group include representatives of the Ministry of Regional Development and Construction, the Economics Ministry, the fin, the National Electricity Regulation Commission, the Association of Ukrainian Cities, and trade unions.

«The group was instructed to draft a plan of anti-crisis measures [for the housing and utility sector] within the shortest possible period,» Kucherenko said, stating the primary task of the working group.

According to Kucherenko, the other tasks of the working group include deregulation and simplification of the system for issuing permits on the market of housing and utility services; studying the possibility of setting gas prices for heating utilities for the entire durations of heating seasons or for a longer period; drafting measures on abolition of cross-subsidies during establishment of prices and tariffs for housing and utility services as well as for electricity; drafting a mechanism for paying fines and penalties for untimely settlement for housing and utility services.

The working group may also consider the issue of raising electricity tariffs for various consumers.

«The possible issue of a possible increase in electricity tariffs or redistribution of tariff differentiation to ensure that enterprises are not vulnerably dependent on electricity tariffs, as is presently the case,» Kucherenko said.

The other main issues that the working group is instructed to consider are the issue of compilation of a list of solvent investors in the housing and utility sector and the possibility of extending the period covered by the Cabinet of Ministers resolution No. 440 of April 25 until the period of January-March 2009.

This Cabinet of Ministers resolution approved the procedures for transferring subventions from the state budget to local budgets in 2008 for payment of the debt on compensation of the differences between the approved tariffs for electricity, water, and sewage and the actual cost of these services.

The working group will hold its first meeting on November 25.

As Ukrainian News earlier reported, the Cabinet of Ministers held a meeting on the problems facing the housing and utility sector on November 18.