Moldovan government approves regulation on assigning categories of energy vulnerability

Chisinau, 5 October /MOLDPRES/ - The cabinet today approved the Regulation on the assigning of categories of energy vulnerability and the way of establishment and payment of compensations for the energy invoices, worked out by the Labour and Social Protection Ministry, the government’s communication and protocol department has reported.       

The regulation establishes the procedure of assigning the category of vulnerability, the way of payment of compensations for the energy invoices and the way of consumers’ registration in the energy vulnerability system, in order to benefit from compensations.     

Under the draft, to be given category of vulnerability, the registration in the Energy Vulnerability information system will be made in two ways: individually and assisted.    

In the case of individual registration, people will fill in an electronic form, where they will put down the place of residence, composition of the household, average incomes of each family member, identification code of the house consumer in the invoice, etc.  

People who do not have equipment, have no access to Internet or have no abilities needed to register individually on the platform, will be assisted by librarians or community social assistants. In this case, the applicant will fill in an application on paper and the data will be subsequently introduced in the information systems by registrars.    

Applicants will be able to register on the website www.compensatii.gov.md once per year and will be able to make  changes to the data declared in the first five days after the registration.     

Seven steps will be followed for establishing the level of vulnerability:    

*  the test of non-vulnerability; 
*  establishing the minimum amount of expenses of the household;      
*  establishing the monthly general income of the household;   
*  calculation of the income available for the payment of energy;    
*  calculation of the energy’s costs on the cold period of the year for the household; 
*  establishing the ratio between the expenses for energy resources and the incomes of the household;  
*  assigning the category of vulnerability.  

The assigning of the category of energy vulnerability to household consumers will be made based on a coefficient, calculated as a ratio expressed in percent between the expenses for energy resources and the income available for the payment for energy.     

As for the places of consumption which were not registered by applicants in the information system, the medium energy vulnerability category will be assigned. 

It is worth mentioning that, after the regulation is approved by the government, the online platform www.compensatii.gov.md is to be launched, worked out with the support of the European Union and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Moldova and families will be able to register for the assigning of the vulnerability category. Subsequently, under another cabinet decision, the size of compensations will be established for each category, which will be provided directly in the energy invoices.   

Photo: Government