LITHUANIAN ENERGY CONSUMERS' CLAIMS COLLECTION
According to Law on Energy there are three institutions in Lithuania, that have the duty to
consider energy consumers claims. It's Article 26, Hearing of Complaints, proclaims (official translation):
1. The National Council for Consumer Protection under the Ministry of Justice shall hold a
preliminary extra-judicial hearing of complaints by natural persons concerning application of unfair
conditions in the sale or service agreements.
2. The State Energy Inspectorate shall hold a preliminary extra-judicial hearing of complaints
concerning malfunctioning of energy facilities and breakdowns of equipment and metering instruments,
breaches of the requirements of maintenance, energy quality, accounting of and payment for energy,
accidents, interruption, suspension or restriction of energy supply.
3. The Commission (The State, or National Control Commission for Prices and Energy) shall hold a
preliminary extra-judicial hearing of complaints concerning acts or omissions of energy enterprises in
supply, distribution, transmission, storing of energy, failure to grant them a right to use networks and
systems, connection, balancing of energy supply flows, application of prices and tariffs.
We should admit that three institutions, mentioned above, do not fully adhere to the principles
laid down in EC Recommendation of 30 March on the Principles applicable to the bodies responsible
for out-of- court settlement of consumer disputes (98/257/EC). Further more, they are not obliged to
adhere to them by the new version of Consumer Protection Law, adopted by Lithuanian Parliament
(Seimas) in January of 2007. Despite our efforts we did not succeed in incorporating the principle of
independence into that Law. Some other principles (principle of transparency, adversarial principle) are
also not fully implemented into the Law. It should be noted, that two of the three, mentioned above
institutions: NCC and SEI under no legal act have a duty to protect consumers' interests. So the
members of their staff do not consider being obliged to do that. We also failed to achieve this notion
being implemented into the new Consumer Protection Law.
Despite little amount of consumer disputes, considered by NCC in 2005 (see below), the impact
of the work being done by that body on consumers' economic situation is very great indeed. For up till
now it regulates the prices of energy. At the same time it should be noted, that there are no clear
principles set for organizing the NCC itself. The NCC is composed of five members. Its Chairman and
four members are appointed by the President of the Republic, on the recommendation of the Prime
Minister, for a period of 5 years. But there are no principles set for Prime Minister to choosing the
candidates for that capacity. Too great influence on NCC's work has Ministry of Economy. Its
regulations are approved, on the recommendation of the Ministry of Economy, by the Government .
We gathered information from the above mentioned three bodies about energy consumers claims
considered in 2005. But this information is rather scrappy. The National Council for Consumer
Protection under the Ministry of Justice (Council) “offered it's assistance” and they did not allow us to
scrutinize consumer claims considered in this institution. They did this work for themselves, and to us
they presented only the results of it. In the National Control Commission for Prices and Energy (NCC)
we could do this work only after we solved the question of personal data of consumers, whose claims
were considered in this institution. For that purpose we had to appeal to National Personal Data
Protection Inspectorate. The conditions of Inspectorate were such, that NCC had to ask all consumers,
who complained to this authority in 2005, if they object to their complaints to be shown to the
members of consumer organisation. Some of them objected. Most smoothly analysis of complaints was
conducted in the State Energy Inspectorate (SEI). We were allowed to see all consumer complaints,
considered in this institution in 2005 and in it's regional offices. We chose three regional offices:
Vilnius, Kaunas and Klaipeda. These three offices cover the 35% of Lithuanian territory and involve
56% of State's population. So we can estimate that the number of claims, we have found in these three
regions should be doubled to approximately find the number of claims considered by SEI regional
offices in the whole of the Country.
We put the results into two tables: “Lithuanian Natural Gas Consumers Claims in 2005” and
“Lithuanian Electricity Consumers Claims in 2005” (see tables 1 and 2 below). We tried to adhere to
the typology of the claims, as laid down in your Final Report's Draft. But we had to add some
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additional items.
It should be noted, that the bulk of consumer complaints, considered by three bodies, falls on
central heating and hot water supply, that are not included into this research.
Lithuanian Natural Gas Consumers Claims in 2005
Table 1 .
Consumers claims considered by:
Nr.
Item
1
Transparency in billing, itemized listing of costs and charges
2
High cost of labour for heater maintenance and repair
3
Billing errors due to electricity meter reading malfunctions
4
Long waiting times to get assistance from suppliers
5
Charging of amounts higher than average consumption
6
Low purchasing price of parts of gas distribution net, paid to
consumers – owners of that parts
7
Interruption, suspension or restriction of gas supply
4
8
Others
3
Council
NCC
Total
SEI
1
3
Summation
4
7
11
Lithuanian Electricity Consumers Claims in 2005
Table 2 .
Consumers claims considered by:
Nr.
Item
Council
NCC
SEI
1
2
3
63
1
Delays in services and transfer activation
2
Lack of information from call centers
3
Transparency in billing, itemized listing of costs and charges
4
How the bill is calculated
5
Billing errors
6
Long waiting times to get assistance from suppliers
7
Interruption, suspension or restriction of electricity supply
15
8
Energy quality
13
9
Unfair terms
5
Total
1
2
10 Others
11
Summation
Expert of Lithuanian national consumer federation
7
5
104
116
Algirdas Glodenis
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