ELDER Issues Statement on Bill Collection Process. ELDER Board Chairman Çeçen clarified that any deferral of accrual or collection of electricity and natural gas bills in the event of a disaster does not apply to the coronavirus period. The written statement from Serhat Çeçen, Chairman of the Board of the Electricity Distribution Services Association (ELDER), noted that the recently published regulation titled “Regulation on the Deferral of Accrual or Collection of Electricity and Natural Gas Consumption Charges Due to Disasters Affecting Public Life” could be misunderstood by the public.
Explaining details from the published regulation, the chairman said that measures such as bill deferral and financing cost arrangements for unpaid amounts are intended to apply only in cases where a disaster causes significant damage affecting everyday life, including places rendered uninhabitable. As outlined in the regulation, the damage caused by a disaster must impact buildings, facilities, or infrastructure. For this reason, an epidemic or pandemic situation is not considered one of the disaster types covered by the regulation or the applicable law.
The chairman reminded readers that Article 1 of the regulation specifically lists the types of disasters covered and emphasized that deferral procedures require events such as earthquakes, fires, floods, landslides, rockfalls, or similar catastrophes to have occurred.
Normal Process Will Resume on July 1, 2020
Normal operations are set to resume on July 1, 2020. The chairman stated that, under the regulation, in the event of qualifying disasters the President may decide that the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources cover supply companies’ financing costs related to bills, up to an amount not exceeding the late payment interest. From July 1, 2020, the normalization process will begin and temporarily suspended regulatory provisions will be reinstated and applied as before. Therefore, it is important that consumers monitor notifications related to consumption to avoid any difficulties.
In its statement, the electricity distribution sector said it suspended planned outages during the coronavirus period and worked intensively to ensure citizens had access to electricity, a basic necessity. With normalization, investments to provide reliable and uninterrupted electricity distribution will continue from where they were paused.