04. 09. 2005

EPS WILL NOT TOW RTS

BELGRADE, September 04, 2005 (Glas javnosti) – By the beginning of next week the dilemma of TV subscription should be solved and decided whether it would be charged through joint account for both electricity and subscription or in some other way. Serbian Electric Power Industry (EPS) has so far been categorically against the joint account. In the past, RTS received a lot of money from subscription because it was paid through a joint account. Regardless of how much the citizens paid separately for electricity or subscription, EPS regularly paid a share of it to RTS. EPS suffered financial damage because this reduced its profit. The sources from EPS claim that by using a joint account the electricity payments would be reduced by 7 percent. They underline that therefore two separate bills should be made. A great deal of citizens is constantly behind with electricity bills, owing thousands of dinars and paying half or around half of their debt each month. It is very hard to determine how much of this payment through a joint account has the consumer intended for electricity and how much for RTS. There are many reasons for »blending« these two bills together, but the main reason is that this is the easiest way to collect subscription. If there were two separate accounts, the citizens could decide whether they would want to pay subscription altogether, and RTS would have the obligation to solve the problem of its debtors. Aleksandar Vasic, Deputy President of the Broadcasting Agency Council confirms that with two separate accounts the percentage of paid subscription fees would be much lower. “The way I see the amendments to the Broadcasting Law, EPS will collect payment and this is supposed to be done through a joint account. If we did have two different accounts, bearing in mind a loose legal culture in our country, the citizens would not pay subscription, even though this is the case in all organised countries, even in our neighbourhood” - stresses Vasic and adds that the modalities of payment will be decided upon when the Law comes into effect. It is unclear, however, how RTS would force its citizens to pay subscription if the electricity bills were printed on separate papers. The Broadcasting Law does not include any articles on evading subscription, but the penalties can be found in regulations of Obligation Law. The citizens have the option of cancelling their radio or TV transmitter, but for now it has not been specified how this could be done. Vasic says that it is expected that in case of not reporting their transmitters, the citizens would have to pay the penalty of 12 monthly subscriptions. Nevertheless, the control mechanisms have not been determined yet. Subscription would be around 300 dinars, which equals the amount of a monthly electricity bill of around a third of consumers in Serbia. The citizens will most probably »respond« by cancelling their transmitters, and new Swedish-made detectors are expected to show up in the streets again, previously used for detecting the unregistered transmitters.