By Nonna Chernyakova A long-standing dispute between regional energy utility Dalenergo and the Vladivostok Mayor's Office will be solved within 15 days, according to Andrei Rapopport, deputy head of the Unified Energy System, the utility's parent company. "The conflict results from the general economic situation in the country and discrepancies in legislation," he said at a Oct. 9 press conference. With the heating season just around the corner (it begins Oct. 15), Dalenergo has announced that heat and hot water won't be turned on in Vladivostok until the Mayor's Office covers its debt of 30 million rubles ($1.9 million) to utility and signs a contract for the coming season. Additionally, Dalenergo workers, whose wages are five months in arrears, threatened on Oct. 7, the day of the All-Russia Action of Protest, to turn off the electricity to 280 debtor organizations, including schools, hospitals and the Mayor's Office itself. Last week, Dalenergo turned off city trams during the day, allowing them to run only for two hours each morning and evening. In an Oct. 6 interview with the local radio program Dobroye Utro, Acting Mayor Nikolai Markovtsev said that the city doesn't owe anything to Dalenergo, because the electrical utility owes the same amount of money in taxes to the Mayor's Office. Rapopport, who came from Moscow to assess the situation in the krai, said that his commission had positive discussions with the Mayor's Office, and within five days both sides will submit their accounts to the other for checking. Dalenergo general director Vasily Polishchuk said that the Mayor's Office took a constructive approach this time. "Everything is ready for signing the contract. We just need to get together and sign it," he said. Vice Gov. Vladimir Rud praised the Moscow commission for being politically unbiased and able to deal with purely technical issues. "For the first time, a commission from Moscow came to do merely economic work," he said. Both Rud and Polishchuk said that nobody expects the huge debts to Dalenergo to be covered in the near future, but mechanism of current payments should start working properly. "We plan to start from a clean sheet of paper and make regular payments," said Rud. However, nobody was able to say when the heat will be turned on in Primorye. © copyright 1998 the Vladivostok News. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed in any form. [Back to News page]  [Back to Front page]  [Write to us]