A draft law has been submitted to the State Duma, tightening control over the spending of funds on special accounts for overhaul
[ad_1]
A government bill has been submitted to the State Duma, tightening control over the targeted spending of funds held on special accounts to finance the overhaul of apartment buildings. The project proposes to create a public register of minutes of meetings of owners related to overhaul, as well as to introduce mandatory construction control over work in renovated houses. Experts note that there are problems in this area – in particular, with fake minutes of meetings that are provided to banks for making payments – the register can help correct the situation, but it is not enough. Mandatory construction control can lead to an increase in the cost of overhaul.
The government submitted to the State Duma bill, strengthening control over the spending of funds from special accounts, on which citizens’ funds are stored for overhaul. As the Ministry of Construction explained to Kommersant, the changes scheduled for entry from September 1, 2024 are aimed at ensuring the safety of this money and control over their intended use.
Let us explain that now there are two ways to finance capital repairs – a “common boiler”, due to which the regional operator repairs houses in turn, and special accounts, the funds for which are provided only for the repair of a particular house. Now the mechanism of special accounts operates for about 15% of houses.
The submitted project obliges housing inspections to maintain a register of minutes of general meetings of owners with decisions on overhaul in the state information system (GIS) of housing and communal services.
It is also proposed to introduce mandatory construction control for works financed from special accounts – the bank will be able to transfer funds from them to the contractor upon receipt, in addition to standard documents (for example, a protocol of the decision of the owners or a contract with the contractor), also an agreement and an act on construction control. This requirement will not apply only to cases of transferring an advance payment to the contractor in the amount of up to 30% of the cost of work.
The Ministry of Construction explained the need for innovations by the fact that the availability of supporting documents required for operations with funds on special accounts does not exclude cases of their misappropriation. So, in 2021, 32.9 billion rubles were allocated to pay for work, which was four times more than the declared cost of work in the acceptance certificates. In 2022 – 35.1 billion rubles. against 10.9 billion rubles.
Sergey Sokhranov, Executive Director of NP ZhKKH-Control, believes that the initiative of the Ministry of Construction is generally positive.
“Talks about the lack of accounting for major repairs in houses with special accounts have been going on for a long time, and the project will allow us to put things in order in understanding what is happening,” the expert says. If the overhaul funds are controlled by several organizations at once, Svetlana Razvorotneva, deputy chairman of the State Duma committee on housing and communal services, continues, then special accounts “to a certain extent were out of control” – for example, there are no maximum rates for work for them, money can be transferred to any contractor.
As the Association of Regional Overhaul Operators (AROKR) explained to Kommersant, “the main point of control over the spending of funds is the bank, which conducts operations after the presentation of documents, but it does not have the authority to verify the authenticity of the protocols.” At the same time, Svetlana Razvorotneva adds, “fake protocols are a scourge in the whole housing and communal services, but in the field of overhaul this problem is especially sensitive, since we are talking about significant amounts.” Now, they note in the AROKR, cases of protocol forgery have become more frequent, when the owners make one decision, and a completely different one is sent to the bank, so the creation of a public registry will help solve this problem. In particular, Pavel Sklyanchuk, ONF expert in the field of housing and communal services, says that the project will help in situations where the management company, being a distributor of funds on a special account, spends them inappropriately, for example, on current repairs, and not on capital ones. Now, if the work is not completed, the expert explains, the house switches to a “common boiler” – and then the regoperator is obliged to carry out repairs at the expense of owners from other houses.
Irina Gentsler, director of the Urban Economy department of the Institute for Urban Economics Foundation, however, believes that the project does not solve the problem of preventing misappropriation of funds.
On the one hand, she says, in a situation where there are two protocols that contradict each other, the inspection may not enter them into the register, and the bank will not be able to make a payment. On the other hand, the maintenance of the registry looks “like a purely mechanical function”, since the department is not given the authority to control the compliance of the decision taken, for example, with the established list of works that can be funded by contributions.
How experts evaluate building control provisions
The introduction of mandatory construction control for overhaul, which is carried out at the expense of funds from special accounts, believes Sergei Sokhranov, executive director of NP ZhKKH-Control, “will add professionalism to the assessment of the quality of construction work.” However, he warns, the introduction of mandatory construction control may lead to an increase in the cost of carrying out work at the expense of money in special accounts, since separate funds will now have to be allocated for this. I agree with this and the deputy chairman of the State Duma committee on housing and communal services Svetlana Razvorotneva. According to her, the owners often do not have the necessary qualifications to control the work of contractors. But there is also a downside – if construction control in the overhaul funds is carried out for the money of the subject’s budget, then in this case it will be at the expense of contributions from the owners. “By the second reading, we will strive to ensure that the owners of special accounts and those who accumulate funds in the “common pot” have equal conditions,” the deputy assures.
[ad_2]
Source link