OREANDA-NEWS. November 21, 2008. Territorial divisions of Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine in all the regions will conduct verification of decisions of the local authorities and self-government bodies on the subject of following an order of tariff forming on housing and communal services. A respective instruction has been given by acting Committee head Olexandr Melnychenko.

First of all it concerns identifying orders of the local authorities regarding the tariffs for juridical persons, similar to those approved by the Kyiv municipal state administration, which the Committee recommended to abolish or replace to harmonize with norms of the competitive legislation.

As is well known November 11, 2008 the Committee set a demand to the authority of the capital to abolish discriminative tariffs raising of which is envisaged by orders №№ 1487, 1488 and 1489. In particular, for supermarkets and other trading networks, operators of mobile networks and private public notaries, banking and insurance institutions tenfold, while for their competitors – threefold.

As a result the Committee instituted a respective proceeding against Kyiv municipal state administration as realization of such anti-competitive practices of the local authorities would cause soaring of prices on socially important services and goods, including foodstuffs.

“My commission is induced by a desire to protect Ukrainians in cases when the local authority not only approves communal tariffs without proper analyzing their economic grounds, but initiates decisions of anti-competitive character.

The vivid proof of it appears an unprecedented decision of Kyiv administration to groundlessly raise tariffs tenfold which will inevitably hit the prices, firstly on food necessities, forming the basket of goods.

Consequently, in eliminating of the like problems Antimonopoly Committee bodies take a strong and principled stand,” Olexandr Melnychenko stressed and added that actions of the Committee don’t spread to relations of local authorities with strip-bars and casinos.