Sewerage and Sewerage Treatment User Charge, Bulgaria
Design Scope
Households pay the sewerage charges and firms pay sewerage and waste water treatment charges.
Tax Rates
The charge is levied per cubic meter of discharged water (Klarer 1994, pp10 Bulgaria) It is based on the average cost for maintenance of the collective sewerage and waste water treatment systems and is generally updated every 2-3 months
Allocation of Revenues
The charges go directly to the water supply and sewerage companies for maintenance of the sewerage and waste water treatment systems.
Institutional Arrangements
Revenue collection and enforcement is by the water supply and sewerage companies.
Drawbacks
There is an ineffective system of imposing fees in case of delayed payment and for enforcing obligatory payment, due to gaps in legislation.' (Klarer 1994, pp10 Bulgaria). There are also organizational problems in collecting the charge. The collection of the charge is performed not more than once or twice in a year, while the expenses for this service are dynamic (i.e., inflation changes are not reflected); and (this is mainly valid for Sofia) there is a shortage of charge collecting offices, taking into account that almost all the households are paying the charge in cash there.
There is also a lack of motivation for decreasing overall quantity of water consumption and thus waste water quantities, due to the collective measurement of water consumption in the majority of the residential buildings.
Related Instruments
Alternatives for restructuring the activities and the status of the water supply and sewerage companies are under discussion. An improvement of the charge collection system is expected, as well as a charge for waste water treatment for households.' (Klarer 1994, pp10 Bulgaria)
References
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