13 criminal cases started against housing and utilities officials

The department for financial investigation of the State Control Committee has started 13 criminal cases against housing and utilities officials, BELTA refers to the head of the KGB financial investigation department Yury Kardymon.

The criminal cases were started for power abuse in all the provinces and in Minsk, he said. The officials did major damage to the state and public interests in the sphere of housing and utilities, the police thinks. The damage done to Belarusian citizens is extremely big.

The officials inflated the tariffs, the police say.

For example, the tariffs for recycling were overstated in Orsha in 2013-2015. The damage done to the state totalled over Br6 billion.

The Belarusian President harshly criticized housing and utilities officials for increasing the tariffs on February 22. Alyaksandr Lukashenka suggested that the head of the State Control Committee imprisoned a dozen or two officials from the Ministry of Housing and Utilities.

All the calculations needed for changing the tariffs were made but in practice everything was done the wrong way round, KGB chief Leanid Anfimau said.