Penza, 26 April 2015. PenzaNews. Lyudmila Kolomytseva, a representative of New Social Newspaper from Penza, told the APF experts about the urban amenities fraud during the workshop “For Fair Procurement” during the St. Petersburg indep regional and local media forum “Truth and Justice” on Sunday, April 26.

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“We have an organization called ‘Gorvodokanal’ that announced a tender, and the tender was won by a deputy and the regional deputy’s firm ‘Stroytekhsnab.’ Thanks to this victory, all people in apartment buildings had building-wide water meters installed. Even the Federal Antimonopoly Service found the price of these devices was incredibly blown, but nobody was punished, and the meters are still installed. What’s curious, this deputy’s own brother heads the cash register center where all the money from the citizens is pooled into. This scheme is highly obvious, they practically ‘made a tool’ out of all citizens of Penza,” Lyudmila Kolomytseva explained.

“And it remains how it was. And people themselves cannot figure out how they were deceived through these water meters. Get it? Everything is very complicated,” she explained.

“Innovations,” sarcastically remarked Alexander Brechalov, co-chairman of the APF Central Headquarters.

“We’ve been writing about this non-stop, not only our newspaper, but our colleagues from Penza as well… It [the problem] is impossible to solve, it is a mess,” Lyudmila Kolomytseva continued.

However, Alexander Brechalov said there is nothing impossible and suggested finding the solution together.

In his turn, the head of the APF project “For Fair Procurement” Anton Getta said the described scheme is an example of “reverse energy efficiency.”

“They installed the meters not to help people save money, but, pardon me, to sweep their wallets. We have experts that are helping us learn more about the energy efficiency issues. We should work with the data. We have three days ahead of us,” he said.

“The thing is, the price of a meter is boosted by 3-4 times,” the Penza journalist clarified.

“I see. And most likely the company in profits is again affiliated with somebody,” Anton Getta supposed.

The workshop hosts expressed their readiness to help resolve this and other issues described by regional journalists. Throughout the media forum, the regional representatives will be able to ask their questions at the stand “For Fair Procurement” to receive advice.