Life in Prague is becoming more expensive. The series of chaotic decisions of the Prague coalition is mainly to blame
December 15, 2021 • 14:00
Energy collapse threatens to make public transport more expensive
The jump in electricity and gas prices is affecting not only all Praguers, but also the functioning of the city itself. Until a few months ago, the de facto nobody knew the turn of “energy poverty”. And energy poverty threatens the cities themselves. the capital city of Prague. The Association of Local Authorities has recently conducted a survey across municipalities. It showed that at least 40% of them want to respond to current problems by increasing municipal budgets. Given that it is at this time of rapid price growth that budgets are being finalized next year, the rise in life will be reflected in reality sooner rather than later.
“We will certainly feel the energy crisis next year, when we expect an increase in expenditures of millions of crowns,” the deputy mayor of the capital told E15 magazine. m of Prague for finance Pavel Vyhnánek (Prague itself). Specifically, it assumes that the metropolis will “go” to the half-billion reserve. Its purpose is to provide the city with the opportunity to respond to unexpected expenditures during the year, such as inflation or wage growth in public administration.
The rise in energy prices has a direct impact on the capital’s expenditure today. “It will also affect the Technology of the Capital City of Prague, because of course we have to shine everywhere,” Vyhnánek continued for E15. Deputy Vyhnánek also points to Dopravní podnik hl. m of Prague, which will have to reckon with more expensive electricity, gas and fuel.
The real topic is again the adjustment of the fare. Originally, Mayor Hřib and Pirates promised that public transport would be free for Praguers, this year the opposite has happened and fare prices have risen by almost a quarter, with the fact that each year it will constantly increase by a crown. With the problems that the city budget has to deal with now, it can be expected that it will not end with the koruna.
The way out of the waste crisis will be another increase
The municipality’s plan to revise the price list for municipal waste collection also recently resented it. The city management is being pushed to do so by an amendment to the Waste Act, the setting of which in Prague continues in its current practice. So far, it has taken into account the size of the containers and the frequency of collection. The Prague coalition therefore adopted a new decree.
“The new decree is bound by boundaries, which determined the new legislation, which was enforced in the Chamber of Deputies of the magistrate opposition – YES, and ODS deputies also voted for the law. We have repeatedly negotiated with the Ministry of the Interior, Environment and Finance, but the interpretation of the law is that it is not possible for people using the largest containers in housing estates to pay less for waste per liter than those who have their own small container, “explains the deputy. the Mayor of the Environment and Infrastructure Petr Hlubuček (STAN), who personally disagreed with the amendment.
However, the fact remains that the prices for waste collection for many Praguers will rise by up to 90%. The new tariff shows that individuals pay about 4 hundred more, but for a family of four from a housing estate, this can represent up to 3.6 thousand crowns. Zdeněk Zajíček, a representative of the Prague ODS, drew attention to the real effects of the tariff changes.
Praguers on all fronts are paying for the ambitions of the city leadership
But the cost of living for Praguers is rising on all fronts. Leisure options are also more expensive – Zoologická zahrada hl. m of Prague, for example, recently increased the entrance fee by 50 crowns, ie practically 25%. “We are even cheaper than in Budapest,” the zoo’s management explained the increase. And the management of the Zoo is demanding another increase in prices next year. All this is accompanied by other interesting plans of the Prague coalition, which look great “on paper”, but their economic implementation is not so simple.
Let us recall, for example, the Climate Plan of the Capital m of Prague. neutrality. The city will cost almost 230 billion crowns, which is about 170,000 per capita. The prices of parking spaces in P + R car parks are still rising, the construction of metro line D is becoming more expensive, and the completion of the Prague ring road has been at a standstill for many years.
Prague shot itself in the leg when it wanted to turn to gambling
At the same time, the situation would not have to be so serious if the city had better thought about its own rules and their real economic impacts. An example of this is the criticized regulatory decree from Hana Kordová Marvanová’s Councilor for Legislation Workshop (STAN), which introduced the so-called zero-tolerance model of gambling in the city and thus prepared the city’s coffers with half a billion crowns of tax revenue per year. This is the estimated shortfall in the gambling tax according to the Center for Economic and Market Analysis (CETA).
These tax resources will logically be missing in the budget. The failure of the city authorities to fulfill these promises must be paid by the citizens. Experts from economists and addictologists point out that the city does not address the issue of online gambling at all, and therefore this path is not very effective.
“No one was really interested in the problem gamblers segment, it’s just a matter of politicians when they feel that banning a ‘stone’ casino with slot machines will bring them media interest. And as long as it works like this, we will close one part of the market while the other grows dramatically. Cities and municipalities will run out of money, but the number of problematic players is not decreasing, they can easily enjoy the online casino advertising campaign for monitored sports broadcasts, so that they can bet on a match between uncontrollable slot machines. The main thing is that we have moved the world to a better office, “added Stanislav Brunclík, President of the Czech Chamber of the Lottery Industry.
On the one hand, Prague is tying up budget revenues with its political steps, on the other hand, it is transferring the costs of paying for these steps to the wallets of Praguers in the form of more expensive waste, direct parking or public transport fares. It seems that in a pirate coalition, we do not promise you anything for free.
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