
Non-payment of energy bills on time has caused the Electricity Distribution Operator OSHEE Group to collect 947 million lek, or about 8.8 million euros, as late interest.
The months with the largest interest arrears are August with 150 million ALL, followed by January and September, with 132 and 130 million ALL, respectively.
OSHEE reported that the number of invoices for which late interest has been collected is 1.44 million.
Late interest accrues on an invoice when the monthly invoice is not paid within 30 days of the following month. So if the invoice was issued for the month of September, it can be paid without interest until the end of October.
In addition to these, OSHEE continues for years to collect arrears from consumers who have entered into agreements due to the debt accumulated over the years. These agreements were concluded several years ago for both family and business customers and provided for repayment in installments, but each installment could not be less than 2,000 ALL.
Until the end of September, the total receipts of OSHEE Group were 60 billion ALL or about 564 million euros.
Correct invoice payments have seen an increase during the last two reported months of August and September resulting in a level of 101.6 and 101.2 percent. Of the total receipts, those of the current year are only half of the total, while the receipts of previous years constitute a value of 11 billion ALL or over 103 million euros.
According to OSHEE's periodic statistics, the number of consumers connected to the electricity distribution network is 1.31 million, while the total bills with consumption readings in the 9 months of this year were 9.22 million.
The same statistics show that from the total of invoices issued, at least 2.4 million of them have zero consumption, which means they are second or empty homes in which there is no systematic energy consumption. The number of invoices issued without reading, i.e. economic damage in total for 9 months, was 479.