Entrepreneurs demand to establish order in the procedure of access to railway tracks
The experts and businessmen discussed the problem of relations between Kazakhstani companies and the owners of access roads.
The enterprises that use the services of railway access roads, cannot achieve a fair, in their opinion, approach to calculate the tariff for services for several years.
The primary claim of business is not in the amount of the tariff (although, according to entrepreneurs, it is also high), but in the calculation methodology. The owners of railway branches charge for the full length of the track, rather than for the actual distance covered by the cars. As a result, the real costs may be several times higher.
"For example, our car runs a distance of 2 km under contract near Kazygurt station We provide daily fuel for 400 cars. Thus, the amount of these services is about 70 million tenge per month. Naturally, this affects the final cost of our products for consumers," Daniyar Seitenov, a representative of Petroleum LLP, said.
For several years the entrepreneurs have been asking the owners of access roads to revise the terms of the standard contract, appealed to the antimonopoly authorities and the courts. In Akmola region, the case reached the Supreme Court. But the revision of the terms of the contract did not happen.
The branch owners repeatedly countered by the fact that track maintenance is costly and the tariffs barely cover these costs. At the same time, the business is ready to buy and maintain the necessary sections of the railway on its own, but in fact, it is deprived of such an opportunity.
"The Arman Kala company bought out a way from the branch owner of the Transport Service Center JSC. The Arman Kala has already approved its tariff / Why when selling the object, the Transport Service Center JSC did not offer to buy it out to the users, i.e. for us but the outside companies? Moreover, our company is the only user and we could offer a more advantageous price on this site," Alexander Yanchenkov, head of the legal department of Bogatyr Komir LLP, said.
This year, the Atameken NCE RK brought the problem to the level of the Government, with the initiative to calculate the tariff for the actual distance of passage of rolling stock along the access road. Committee on Regulation of Natural Monopolies and Protection of Competition eventually rejected the new method of calculation in the standard contracts. According to Yerlan Alzhan, the Head of the Department of Control and Claims and Claims Work of the Committee, such a measure "requires a more detailed analysis".
"This is a pure civil-law relationship between the owners of access roads and business," Yerlan Alzhan said.
The Deputy Chairman of the Board of the Atameken NCE RK Yevgeniy Bolgert did not agree with this statement and pointed to the lack of choice among users of access roads.
"Businesses do not have equal conditions when talking to the monopolist. After all, if the entrepreneur does not sign a contract, the car will not pass to him, and he has no alternative way. Thus, those who refuse to sign the contract, create certain difficulties when passing through the access roads. The result is a monopoly agreement. Amendments to the model agreement are not discussed for the first year. Let's not wait any longer, but take the final decision on this problem," Yevgeniy Bolgert said.
Representatives of the business community demanded from the representatives of the Ministry of National Economy of the Republic of Kazakhstan to make changes to the order of their department on approval of standard contracts for the provision of regulated services, taking into account the interests of users of access roads by the end of August 2019.
Acting Chairman of the Committee on Regulation of Natural Monopolies and Protection of Competition of the Ministry of National Economy of the Republic of Kazakhstan Asan Darbayev assured that he was ready to work on these issues, as well as to assist in activating the work of the Working Group in the field of regulated services of access roads at the Ministry of National Economy of the Republic of Kazakhstan until the end of this month.
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