In the few months since taking over the operation of the district heating network in Bucharest, TERMOENERGETICA has accumulated debts of 398 million lei to ELCEN, announces the main thermal energy producer in Bucharest. ELCEN has already filed lawsuits to recover its debts and warns that TERMOENERGETICA already meets the conditions for entering into insolvency following the accumulation of outstanding debts.
The invoices for January, February and March 2020 were not paid, complains ELCEN; it has calculated that the Bucharest City Hall registered arrears on the payment of the subsidy for the period November 2019 – February 2020 in the amount of 538 million lei. “These are overdue bills and penalties are levied according to the law”, ELCEN states in a press release.
“According to the law 325/2006 regarding the public heat supply service, the Municipality of Bucharest, as a territorial administrative unit, is responsible for ensuring the continuity and safety of the public heat supply service. This obligation also includes ensuring and paying the funds necessary to cover in full and on time all the costs set by the legislator in his charge, respectively the transfer of the subsidy to cover the difference between the price of production, transport, distribution and supply of heat delivered to the population and the local price for thermal energy billed to population, according to OG 36/2006.”
ELCEN has already filed a lawsuit to recover the claims. “Also, given the fact that there is a major risk of repeating the ELCEN-RADET situation as a result of increasing outstanding debts – with the risk of compromising the reorganization of ELCEN and, implicitly, the district heating system in Bucharest – ELCEN has the obligation to take into account all the legal options for the recovery of these debts, including the possibility of formulating a request for the opening of the insolvency procedure of TERMOENERGETICA, in accordance with the provisions of Law 85/2014.”
The financial situation in detail, as summarized by ELCEN
- 88.29 million lei – unpaid receivable for January 2020, with overdue maturity of 60 days, plus penalties for delay
- 158.12 million lei – unpaid receivable for February 2020, with overdue maturity of 31 days, plus penalties for delay
- 151.71 million lei – the value of the invoice for March 2020, with maturity exceeded on April 29
In the press release, ELCEN summarizes the financial situation that led RADET Bucharest into bankruptcy: current debts of approximately 300 million lei, registered by RADET towards ELCEN as a result of financial and technological losses in the 2016-2019 insolvency period and payable, according to the legislation in force, by PMB, the institution that established and coordinated RADET. These current debts are added to the debts of RADET Bucharest registered towards ELCEN in the amount of 3.7 billion lei, registered in the final table of receivables, for which it was requested in court to attract the liability of the Municipality of Bucharest. According to ELCEN, PMB registers an outstanding subsidy for November 2019 amounting to 86.92 million lei, and about 450 million lei is the value of subsidies not paid by PMB for the public heat supply service provided for December 2019, respectively January and February 2020.