Right before the start of the heating season, the Government increased gas prices, which has lead to an increase in heating fees. At the same time, the number of recipients of subsidies over the last year decreased by 75 percent. This was announced by Serhiy Lovochkin, the OPPOSITION PLATFORM – FOR LIFE MP. According to him, the government  deprived 4.6 million families of the ability to pay the government's tariffs by introducing draconian rules for calculating subsidies.

“At the beginning of the heating season, almost 4.6 million Ukrainian families could not reissue the housing and communal subsidy, which they previously received. If in October 2017, 6.044 million households received the subsidy, in October 2018 their number decreased to 1.497 million, or by 75 percent. This is a consequence of the unjustified tightening of the rules of granting subsidies, initiated by the government in April this year,” Lovochkin stated.

According to the politician, having increased gas tariffs by 23.5 percent effective Nov. 1, the government launched a chain of revision of the remaining housing and utility tariffs and at the same time deprived millions of Ukrainian households of the right to receive subsidies.

“This will lead to an increase in energy poverty among the population, whose utility expenses have increased more than fivefold since 2013, despite the fact that the average pension has increased by only 68 percent over this time,” he said.

The MP is convinced that the current government is preparing even a greater tariff shock for the next year. According to the government’s plans, by the end of 2019, gas tariffs can rise by another 44 percent, while in the draft State Budget-2019, the volume of housing subsidies is reduced by a quarter, from UAH 71 billion to UAH 55.1 billion.

“We must not allow shifting the entire tariff burden and the mistakes of the authorities to the population. Every family in need should have a guaranteed right to a subsidy without additional prerequisites. Therefore, the budget that has just been adopted must be revised already,” Lovochkin concluded.