Protected electricity user “on paper” does not mean that it will be so in real life. This is what the ombudsman Juris Jansons found, stating that protected users cannot receive support if the end user – home owner, manager and others – has chosen a trader who does not provide this protected user trade service at all in the conditions of the free electricity market. More than 160 thousand protected users are currently registered in Latvia, but a significant part – more than 50 thousand – do not actually receive the service.
The Ombudsman calls on the Cabinet of Ministers to ensure the right of all protected users to actually receive the support of the protected user by March 1 of the following year, if they are not the direct signatories of the electricity sales contract and the end user has not made a socially responsible decision by concluding a contract with an electricity trader that must provide the service or that it is provided voluntarily. Day found out in the responsible ministries whether this deadline is realistic and what actions should be taken.
Protected users are poor or low-income households, families taking care of a disabled child, people with group I disabilities or their guardians, large families. The ombudsman found a gap in the current regulation when considering the application of a person with a group I disability, which indicated that he had been granted support from a protected user, but the support had actually stopped since the moment when the manager of the residential building entered into an electricity sales contract with an electricity trader that does not provide a protected user trading services.
Read the whole article in newspapers Day in the issue of Thursday, September 19! If you want to continue reading the newspaper in printed form, you can subscribe to it+
2024-09-20 16:32:19