A working group to discuss problems linked to growth of housing and utilities tariffs consisting of lawmakers of all five factions of the city council and representatives of the economy, housing and utilities policy departments of Kyiv City Administration has started working in Kyiv, the press service of Kyiv City State Administration Head Vitali Klitschko has reported.

"The main task [of the commission] is to find real mechanisms for protecting the interests of Kyiv residents in the conditions of tariff hikes within powers of city authorities. Today local authorities do not form heat tariffs and do not approve the utilities cost for monopolists. Today legislation bans from subsiding the difference in the tariffs. Would Kyiv residents like to send their taxes for subsidies to Kyivenergo or Kyivvodokanal? I think that the answer is obvious," Klitschko said at the beginning of the meeting of Kyiv City Council on Thursday.

He said that the effective use of heat pipelines in Kyiv is being discussed by the working group.

"Kyiv is preparing for the new agreement on heat pipelines and combined head and power plants management. City authorities have attracted international specialists to drafting the document. The interests of Kyiv city and Kyiv residents must be number one issue," he said.

He said that Kyiv authorities insist on letting know Kyiv residents how the price of gas is formed, as 80% of the heat tariff is the cost of natural gas.

"An address to the government has been drawn up to receive a clear answer: how the price of gas is formed today, what is the share of Ukrainian-made gas, and what price we pay for imported gas. Only having this information one can really influence the tariffs," Klitschko said.

The Kyiv mayor also called on the government to react to the decisions of the city councils and revise the tariff policy.

"The government should not call local authorities populists, but react to the decision of several city council, in particular, Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Dnipropetrovsk and Poltava regional councils regarding imposing a moratorium on the tariff hikes and revise the tariff policy. Otherwise, there is a threat of catastrophe of non-payments," he said.