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Consumer feedback wanted on electricity bills

Consumers can influence and decide the amount of their electricity bill if they believe that their bills are unrealistically high, the chairperson of the Federation of Consumers in Bulgaria, Pavel Kurlev, told a news conference organised by electricity distribution company CEZ Bulgaria on June 18. CEZ Electro Bulgaria sales director Radoslav Dimitrov joined Kurlev in calling the company’s clients to be active in informing the company about suspicions of irregularities of any kind, as well as in going to the CEZ centers for the relevant region to re-register or personally decide the monthly base for the bill, which they will pay since CEZ adopted the quarterly billing system.

All CEZ clients, about two million consumers from Sofia and western Bulgaria, can go to their regional CEZ offices until the end of June and re-register free of charge. After June 30, the re-registration would cost 14 leva, Dimitrov said.

CEZ switched to quarterly billing to save costs, arguing that it was a practice widely used in many European Union member states. Using the new system, CEZ calculates a monthly base that the client will pay by using a formula, which contains the data from the electricity bills for the previous quarter and the electricity bills for the same three months of the previous year.

During the first two months of the period, the client pays this amount without receiving a bill. In the third moth he receives an invoice that reflects the real consumption for the period.

CEZ consumers also have the right, in some special cases, to define personally the monthly base, which they prefer to pay. The clients are able to define this amount during the month after they receive the invoice, so the base can be changed in the CEZ system for future quarters. All they need to do is go to the CEZ clients’ service centers, tell their reasons to need smaller or bigger monthly base and fill in the necessary forms, CEZ said.

On June 10, the State Energy and Water Regulations Commission began checking whether CEZ Electro is observing correctly the formula for defining the estimated monthly bills, which the clients have to pay, Bulgarian-language website mediapool.bg reported. The checks became necessary because of the many complains filed by CEZ clients, who did not agree with the amounts they had to pay under the new system, which CEZ introduced on May 7.

The company has argued that the number of complaints was tiny compared to the total number of customers it services.

June 19 2008, Source: sofiaecho.com

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Thursday, August 28 2008

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    What: A joint exhibition of photographer Dana Kyndrova and her mother, Libusi, remembering the occupation of Czechoslovakia by the troops of the Warsaw Pact forty years ago.
    When: June 30 to September 19
    Where: the Czech Centre, 100 Rakovski Str, Sofia