KOSICE, September 23, (WEBNOVINY) — Regional power distributor in eastern Slovakia VSD announced it would temporarily cut off electricity supplies to some apartment buildings in the Roma urban settlement Lunik IX in Kosice, the second largest city in Slovakia. Its spokesperson Andrea Danihelova confirmed this for SITA news agency on Thursday. VSD is intensively negotiating with the city housing association and municipal authorities about a solution for the absolutely unfit condition of electrical installations owned by the city situated in apartment buildings in this Roma urban settlement.
In most cases, shared apartment distribution frames and apartment installations are in a desolate state and the distribution system is repeatedly overloaded. The system was designed and constructed only for lightning and small electrical appliances and thus is not appropriate for heating, which is very often its main use now after the interruption of central heating and natural gas supplies. The deteriorating state of apartment buildings leads to higher risk of injuries and according to valid legislation VSD is obliged to cut off the electricity supplies in such cases.
The city housing association is as the owner of the majority of residential buildings in Lunik IX is responsible for the state of distribution frames and is obliged to have relevant inspection reports from the electric frames. The inspection reports are still not available. City and the its housing association still discuss with VSD a solution of the situation in Lunik IX. Electricity would still be supplied to the kindergarten, school and the local district office.
The mayor of Lunik IX, Ladislav Sana admitted that the main problem at Lunik IX are illegal consumers. “Some Roma have installed illegal connections and even if they wanted to have a legal connection they can not have it, because they do not have a rent contract and without a permission from the housing association they will not be connected by the distribution company. Another problem is that the Roma miss natural gas and heating supplies, thus they use electricity for heating. In the past, there were cases of children and adult deaths there because of cold in flats,” said Sana.
SITA
