OREANDA-NEWS. On April 24-25, 2007 the All-Russian conference "The System of Housing Management in Russia" took place in Moscow, reported the press-centre of  FAS Russia. Speaking at the conference, Maxim Kononenko, Deputy Head of the Directorate on Control and Supervision in Construction, Natural Resources, and Housing & Utilities Services, expressed the FAS Russia's position on the tenders for selecting managing companies and on calculating the utility rates and informing the consumers. Deputy Head of a FAS Russia's Directorate reminded that according to the amendments to the Housing Code of the Russian Federation, passed at the end of 2006, tenders for selecting managing companies should take place before 1st May 2008.


Maxim Kononenko stated that "the antimonopoly authority is totally against any determent as it would delay the reforms in the housing and utilities sector. "Besides, FAS Russia finds unacceptable putting additional qualifying requirements to managing companies apart from specified in the governmental Resolution "On Organizing Open Biddings for Selecting Managing Organizations of Apartment Blocks by the Local Authorities" as it can restrict the access of economic entities to the market of apartment blocks management services, - stated Maxim Kononenko. The antimonopoly authority also favours transparency of utility rates setting. In this connection, FAS Russia made some proposals to the draft of the "Outlines of price setting for goods and services provided by the utilities agencies" (the draft is currently in preparation and will be introduced to the Government of the RF). The proposals focus on unambiguous guidelines for calculating utility rates and ensuring availability of the information on the rates structure to the consumers.


Maxim Kononenko added that according to the governmental Resolution "On Organizing Open Biddings for Selecting Managing Organizations of Apartment Blocks by the Local Authorities", FAS Russia is charged with analyzing the market of such services throughout the country on an annual basis. The antimonopoly authority is going to commence the work right now, and appropriate measures will be taken for all revealed violations of the legislation.

Reference: According to the governmental Resolution "On Organizing Open Biddings for Selecting Managing Organizations of Apartment Blocks by the Local Authorities", violating the tender procedures constitutes the grounds for the courts to void the tender results and the agreements on managing an apartment block which were signed based on the tender results.