San Marino. Bill increases, consumer associations meet AASS: “New pockets of poverty are being created”
“The announced increases on bills have started and in this scenario deliberately made unclear from the outset, in our opinion there is only one true moral obligation: to inform citizens in the most correct way possible. It is for this reason: to try to find a solution to the confused and vacillating communication around the increase in bills for all utilities, that Assoconsumatori have deemed it appropriate to confront the top management of AASS”.
This is the position expressed by UCS – ASDICO – Sportello Consumatori.
“Going to the heart of the questions, it was important to understand the precise amount of the increases and how much these will affect the household budget. So while on gas there has been talk of a fixed increase of 30% which will start from next January, Aass has set apart the Assoconsumatori that the increases in energy, on the other hand, started on December 1st. Being about increases variability, it was not possible to obtain precise information on how much users will pay, however the Company illustrated a simulation referring to the month of November to the Assoconsumatori, if the increases had started a month ago we would have been called to pay a bill increased by double . In the light, therefore, of the constant increase in the prices of raw materials and perhaps also of other things, it is easy to predict that the December bills will weigh three times as much compared to what has been paid so far.
In the face of these disproportionate will increase theRegulatory Authority for Public Utilities has ruled that «it is correct to make the pricing defined below effective starting from December 2022″but he also added that «the new tariff system approved could have a significant impact on less well-off families, already tried by a long period of difficulty due to the pandemic, the energy emergency and the particularly significant flu in this period. The Authority requests and asks the political and institutional bodies to find ways of identifying these situations, and to evaluate intervention measures to safeguard them”..
To politics – the trade associations continue – which has never answered our questions, we ask again why the State Company, in the past boasting of the same, has not been put in a position to represent added value for its citizens in a undoubtedly difficult time. And because more than a year after the first increases, have never actually met with the Assoconsumatori and the Trade Unions opening a permanent discussion table.
Finally, while we started quickly with the increases, not even waiting for the new year, one wonders where are the aids mentioned by the Authority.
This is no small game if we consider that the increases in utility costs will have a dramatic impact on the budget of the less well-off, creating new pockets of poverty even among those who previously had no economic problems.
Meanwhile, AASS let it be known that citizens could save something by going to the Company’s website and opting to receive the invoice digitally because new price increases have started and for those who do not register, the bill will also be made more expensive the shipping costs which will be charged for 1.25 euros per contract. Once the fog around the tariffs has cleared, the reality that peeps out risks being potentially explosive” concludes the note.