It must be admitted that we live in a country where people have different incomes: some earn a million a day, the others earn several thousand hryvnias a year.
What was my idea? In Kyiv, where very rich people live, and there are at least 20% of them, I wanted to force this part of the townspeople to bear the cost of paying utility bills by introducing differentiated tariffs: tariffs should have been high for the rich, and as low as possible for the poor.
For wealthy residents of Kyiv, paying utility bills would not be as burdensome as for an ordinary pensioner living in the capital. Since it is obvious that wealthy residents of Kyiv spend more money in restaurants in one evening than some old people receive in a month.
In the future, I wanted to exempt the people of Kiev from paying utility bills, for whom this item of expenditure is the heaviest burden, and there were about 650-700 thousand of them at that time.
At the first stage, it was planned to differentiate tariffs for ordinary consumers and for successful companies and enterprises that had high profits - banks, casinos, restaurants.
In general, I knew that raising tariffs was a highly unpopular decision. And that no one, even those who believed in me and supported my steps, will applaud this. I didn't expect applause. And those who criticized me at that time knew perfectly well that the tariffs for utilities in Kyiv had to be increased.
The purpose of the increase in tariffs was, first of all, aimed on restoration of the housing and communal sector of the capital, so that the houses and yards on each of the streets would have the comfort of the capital, so that the entrances were renovated, the garbage was removed, the elevators worked, and there was street lighting at night. But the idea was to do this not at the expense of the residents of Kiev, who, after paying for utilities, only have enough for bread and water, but at the expense of rich people and successful companies, for whom the increase in tariffs does not mean living from hand to mouth and the inability to buy the necessary medications.
On October 30, 2008, a decision was made by the Kyiv City Council session to raise tariffs for housing and communal services. On my personal initiative, the deputies voted that the tariffs for ordinary people would remain unchanged, and for profitable commercial enterprises tariffs would be increased by 5-10 times.
After that, I signed a corresponding order, which regulated the increase in tariffs primarily for legal entities by 1.08–9.5 times, but later it was canceled by the President of Ukraine on November 20, 2008.
On November 27, 2008, the order of the head of the Kyiv City State Administration on raising tariffs for housing and communal services for legal entities was re-signed, and it was canceled again on January 12, 2009, by presidential decree.
In 2009, the order of the head of the Kyiv City State Administration was again prepared and signed to increase tariffs for utilities for nine categories of commercial enterprises by 8.55 times from January 16 instead of the previously established increase for 11 categories of enterprises by 9.5 times from December 1.
This order provided for an increase in tariffs for casinos and gambling establishments; night clubs and strip bars; bars in entertainment establishments; offices of political parties; exchanges, pawnshops and real estate agencies; arms, antiques, jewelry stores; mobile operators; currency exchange points; appraisers.
Thus, the list of legal entities was reduced from 11 to 9, for which tariffs were increased, and car dealerships and 3-, 4- and 5-star hotels were also excluded from it.
All tariffs for nine types of legal entities increased by 8.55 times: for heating - by 40.65 to 46.03 UAH/sq. m of heated area during the heating season, for hot water and drainage - by 125.13 to 141.7 UAH / cu. m, for cold water and its drainage - by 33.98 to 38.48 UAH / cu. m.
Accordingly, the Kyiv City State Administration invalidated the order dated November 27 to increase tariffs for utilities for 11 categories of legal entities by 9.5 times, which was canceled by President Viktor Yushchenko.
But the new order was subsequently canceled.
As a result, we can say that during 2007-2009 I wanted to make socially fair tariffs and introduce more than 10 different tariffs for different user groups, primarily so that the costs of housing and communal services for socially vulnerable segments of the population would gradually decrease, and the quality the services provided would increase.