The national public utility holding could commence operations by March 2015 at the latest and the now state-held Főgáz could serve as its base, János Lázár announced on Sunday in Makó.
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The minister in charge of the Prime Minister’s Office said at a forum held before journalists that the initial task of the firstnational public utility holding will be to provide electricity, gas, and district heating service. Water supply, sewage disposal and waste disposal services could commence later, he added. The prime minister appointed state secretary of the Prime Minister’s Office Lászlóné Németh to be in charge of organizing the holding.
The fully state-owned company will attempt to provide electricity, gas, and district heating under market conditions by beating its rivals in the competition to as many households as possible, János Lázár said. The politician claimed the government did not wish to “overcome” current market players using state means, the state company sought to gain the trust of consumers through service at high standards and competitive prices.
Based on EU legislation, a distinction is made between the maintenance of the network and the supply of consumers, thus there is no technical barrier to the service. The state purchased Főgáz, which could serve as a good basis for the national public utility holding, the minister said.
Holding and public utility price cut
As reported earlier, János Lázár announced on Saturday that the government made a decision on the creation of a national public utility company at its session on Thursday. He said the primary goal will not be to attain a profit but to provide safe and inexpensive service. Minister of the national economy Mihály Varga emphasized in connection with the holding on Hír TV that we wanted to belong to countries where public utilities are affordable and this required setting up a public utility holding company.
Based on a study of the Hungarian Energy Association, Magyar Nemzet earlier reported that residential consumers could fare well with the creation of the state-held public utility holding.
First off, with the three-tier public utility decrease this year, gas became cheaper: its price decreased by 6.5 percent as of 1 April. On its heels, the price of gas declined by an additional 5.7 percent from September and the price of district heating by 3.3 percent from October.
On the first day of the autumn session of the parliament, in his speech on urgent and topical matters prime minister Viktor Orbán also spoke of the public utility price cut by highlighting its positive effects on the economy, primarily in terms of the significant economic growth. The public utility price cut “is the core essence of our whole politics (…), it is about not allowing anyone to pluck Hungarians seven times for basic services”.
based on article of mno.hu
Photo: zaol.hu
