CHP vows to apply for cancellation of electricity law

“Honest citizens will be paying the bill. At the moment they see that they have to pay for electricity leakages and losses. So they apply to the courts and win their cases, amounting to 30 billion Turkish Liras. There are six reasoned decisions of the Supreme Court of Appeals in favor of citizens, but the new law was recently passed despite all these facts. We will take this law to the Constitutional Court,” CHP head Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu said in his speech at a parliamentary group meeting on June 14.

The government-sponsored bill that will force consumers to pay for all electricity leakages and losses will also annul several environmental and agricultural regulations, in order to ease conditions for the construction of power plants. It was accepted by parliament’s General Assembly early on June 4 despite protests by opposition parties and environmental groups.

The opposition attempted to obstruct discussions of the bill amid objections to costs stemming from losses to 36 million subscribers.

According to the law, Turkish consumers will continue to pay several prices on their electricity bill for retail sale services and the use of transmission and distribution systems, as well as for leakages and losses. 

CHP deputy Tacettin Bayır claimed earlier this month that while 33 billion liras had been paid to electricity companies under the heading of “costs of leakages and losses” from 2006 to 2014, the government had made 39 billion liras during the same period through privatizations.

Bayır also added that the leakage loss usage of six provinces was four times the amount of power produced by the Atatürk Dam, the largest of its kind in Turkey.