The government has all the tools needed to cut the utility tariffs for household consumers by at least 40%, but there is no political will for fear of losing IMF tranches after this. Serhiy Lovochkin, a member of the OPPOSITION BLOC parliamentary faction said this in a statement.

“Having received new shocking utility bills in December, most people face a difficult choice: give away all their monthly earnings or a pension to pay for utilities, or buy food and medicine. And this despite the fact that the government has the necessary instruments to reduce the tariffs, but there is no political will or desire to do it,” Serhiy Lovochkin said.

One such tool is the quarterly price adjustments on the basis of consumption of imported and Ukrainian gas, foreign exchange rate and the price of imported gas, he said.

The member of parliament reminded that the price of gas for household consumers depended on the price of domestically produced and imported gas, their ratio in the total volume of consumption and the hryvnia exchange rate against the US dollar. “Today's rates are calculated as of March 2015 and are based on overestimated volume of consumption of expensive imported gas and overpriced imports,” Serhiy Lovochkin said.

The politician stressed that the price of imported gas today was not $ 270 per thousand cubic meters - the number that had been included in tariff calculations early in the year, but $ 227 per thousand cubic meters. “The price has fallen by 16%, but the government refuses to revise the tariffs. According to our calculations, the household consumption of imported gas should be only 2 billion of cubic meters of gas, not 8.5 billion. Given these trends, the price of gas, which covers the financial costs of Naftogaz gas supply to households should be reduced by at least one thousand six hundred thirty-one thousand hryvnias, or 40%,” the member of parliament said.

Serhiy Lovochkin stressed that the new bills were absolutely unjustified. “The average temperature in November was much higher than usual, and the government decree linking the heating bills to ambient temperature only came into effect on December 19. Thus, Ukrainian households were plundered by the government twice - the first time, when they paid for unsubstantiated predatory tariffs, and a second time - when people were forced to pay for heat, which they had not consumed,” the politician said.

He recalled that the OPPOSITION BLOC systematically demanded that the government should cancel these draconian tariffs. “We submitted draft laws with a proposal to impose a moratorium on tariff increases, we filed lawsuits to courts to challenge illegal decisions to raise the tariffs, we called on the government to abandon the idea, but the government does not want to hear us,” the MP said.

“That is why we insist on a quarterly review of tariffs, not at the end of the heating season, as proposed by the Yatseniuk government,” the politician stressed. "We consider unacceptable to include huge network losses in utility tariffs for households, and draw attention to the lack of proper control of the National Commission for Power and Utility Regulation over this issue,” Serhiy Lovochkin summed up.