Ukraine has resumed Luhansk’s water supply
The CEO of the company “Luhansk Energy Association,” Volodymyr Gritsay, said on the TV channel 112 Ukraine that the company resumed delivering electricity to the Popasnjansky district water utility that provides water to Luhansk and its surrounding area, which is not under governmental control.
“There is information that the Popasnjansky district water utility received its first tranche of funds of 10.5 million USD, and since we saw about 6 million USD on its accounts, we decided to restore the supplies to the Petrovska water intake,” he said.
However, Gritsay stressed that even though the Popasnjansky water utility received its first tranche, the debt of LPR remains at 123-124 million USD for the electricity consumed. He claimed that this issue would be “solved after January 10th,” adding that overall the situation with the repayment of debt in the region has not changed.
On January 6th, the LPR paid the Popasnjansky district water utility 10.5 million hryvnia as part of the water debt.
Additionally, on December 1st, the LLC Luhansk Energy Association, shut down the powering units of the second lift of Petrovska pumping station, which provides water to the LPR. That happened due to the utility’s electricity debt that amounts to 124 million UAH. The problem is that the Popasnjansky district's water utility is a water supplier to 80 thousand residents in the Luhansk region, a territory controlled by the Ukrainian authorities, as well as to the 1.2 million inhabitants of the temporarily occupied territories. The company, though, has not received any payment yet for the water supply. To solve the issue, the LPR created the company “A new source of life’ under the framework of the Minsk agreements Tripartite Contact Group. Ultimately, on August 25th, 2016, a contract was signed between the Popasnjansky district water utility and LPR for the supply of drinking water. According to this contract, the payments for the water service were to begin on September 4th, 2016 but no payments have been received yet.