Eviction cancelled because of competition

The recent gas explosion in Dnipropetrovsk has drawn the public’s attention not only to gas prices, which have been in the spotlight in recent weeks, but also to the work of the distributor gas networks that are hooked up to nearly every building in our country. It appears that a simple pipe can spark a tragedy, and no one is protected against this. In the following interview with The Day, the head of the Kyivhaz Company Serhii Slepkan gives his assurance that a tragedy similar to the one that occurred in Dnipropetrovsk is next to impossible in Kyiv.

“To judge an accident from a distance is similar to diagnosing a patient over the phone, and I don’t want to judge my colleagues without knowing the facts uncovered by the investigation. Of course, in theory it is possible that gas under average pressure entered a low- pressure pipe. This is not human error but simple wear and tear of equipment. Inadequate control over the process could also certainly have caused the accident.”

Is there any danger of the same thing happening in Kyiv?

“I won’t be mistaken if I say there is a 0.1 percent chance of this happening in the capital. First of all, we are better equipped. Secondly, we have well-organized, accurate, and constant control both over the equipment and activities of the maintenance staff. We receive operational data on the status of our gas distributing centers every 15 minutes. We have indicators of both ingoing and outgoing pressure, and we immediately react whenever there are deviations from the norm.”

So this kind of accident cannot happen here. How about in some other place?

“In life, anything can happen. As the saying goes, never say ‘never.’ Everything depends on how people treat their obligations and what kind of qualifications they have. But not everything is in our power. There are many cases when residents simply don’t let our technicians enter their apartments, especially their private homes. This is a big problem. In this case, we simply cannot guarantee their safety, if we don’t know whether they have installed devices in their homes.

“But an even bigger problem for us is the timely arrival in response to an emergency call. You know that there are frequent traffic jams on Kyiv roads, so if an emergency vehicle has to get from one district to another, it will be delayed. Then an accident in Kyiv can be expected as well, and all because they tried to deprive us of our base stations. But we submitted this issue for the mayor’s consideration and received support from him and his deputy Holubchenko. They have also understood that a line-man should not spend 1.5 hours getting to places scheduled for an inspection, if a base station is located in the Pechersk district, and he has to get to the Sviatoshyn district. The old part of the city, from where they want to evict us, needs a lot of our attention. Moreover, government institutions and embassies are located there. The maintenance of the network and equipment in these districts should be impeccable.”

So, if I understand correctly, there will be no more encroachments on your base stations and emergency centers?

“We have reached an understanding with nearly all the districts in the capital, besides the Shevchenko district. Today the city has understood that the premises leased by gas providers cannot be subjected to competition.”

But they don’t seem to have understood this in the Shevchenko district because the rents here are the highest in the city.

“You have answered your own question. But the district’s authorities explain this by the need to fill the budget, improve services and utilities, and build something there. But this cannot be done at the expense of people’s safety. Dnipropetrovsk has convinced us of this. There are certain companies, including Kyivhaz, which should be treated diffe-rently.”