„The Capital supply of hot water is likely to be stopped in the following period, given that the City Hall has not paid the heat subsidy and thus ELCEN can not pay its invoices to the suppliers,” said Sierra Quadrant, the legal administrator of ELCEN.

Sierra Quadrant states that, apart from setting up new energy companies, Bucharest City Hall has failed to honor its payment obligations stipulated in Government Ordinance 36/2006 on the payment of the subsidy for thermal energy delivered to the population and has not yet paid the amounts provided for January, according to e-nergia.ro.

„In the absence of such funds, ELCEN can not pay its outstanding obligations to ROMGAZ (natural gas supplier), in which ROMGAZ may cease supply of raw materials to ELCEN. This automatically leads to the shutdown of all the ELCEN plants used for the production of thermal energy, subsequently distributed by RADET to end users (citizens, schools, kindergartens, businesses),” says Sierra Quadrant.

The January subsidy of 175 million lei was not paid in the form of advanced direct payment to ROMGAZ (according to the Deposit Guarantee Convention) nor was it paid through the Escrow account made available to producers (ELCEN having a 70% share of the total heat produced).