16:06, 22 January 2019

"Gazprom" treats rumours about writing-off billion-rouble Chechnya's gas debts as fake news

Rustam Amerkhanov, the deputy director general for gas sales at the "Gazprom Mezhregiongaz Grozny" Company. Photo http://groznyrg.ru/info.php?gait=rukovodstvo

The court's judgement on writing off the gas debts of residents of Chechnya has no amount of 9 billion roubles. The Chechen Prosecutor's Office (PO) has removed the debt amount from its press release.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on January 16, the Chechen PO reported that a court in Grozny had ordered the "Gazprom" to write off "hopeless population's debts" in the amount of over 9 billion roubles. After that, local deputies of the Astrakhan and Smolensk Regions, and of Bashkiria and Chuvashia, applied to their regional POs demanding to write off utility debts of the population of their regions.

The Chechen PO has explained that the statute of limitations on the gas debts in Chechnya had expired; and demands to pay the debts "could lead to protests." Residents of Chechnya and lawyers said that writing-off the debts is unlikely to affect ordinary citizens.

The sum of 9 billion roubles does not appear in the court judgement, said Rustam Amerkhanov, the deputy director general for gas sales at the "Gazprom Mezhregiongaz Grozny" Company.

He has added that a complaint against the judgement of the Grozny court is already at the Supreme Court of Chechnya.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on January 22, 2019 at 10:12 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.