The Minister of Labor, Marius Budai, said that on Monday the first nine payments were made to the suppliers who capped and compensated the prices for electricity and natural gas.

“Today we have already made the first nine payments to suppliers and here I am only talking about home consumers. Payments and compensations to suppliers are made by the Ministry of Labor through the National Agency for Payments and Social Inspection for household consumers. These payments have started to be made today, we already have 30 applications received, we estimate that we will have around 100-110 applications, tomorrow we have other payments scheduled and so, day by day, in the shortest time, we’ll close these payments,” said Budai, at the Parliament Palace, according to Agerpres.

The Romanian Association of Energy Suppliers has expressed concern that, almost four months after the adoption of the legislation and the issuance of the first bills, suppliers have not received back the money spent on capping and offsetting electricity and gas prices.

According to the Minister, the situation was clarified last week by an order that was published in the Official Gazette, and a meeting with the suppliers that took place last Thursday.

The Romanian Association of Energy Suppliers also claimed that the new Joint Order of the Ministers of Labor, Energy and Finance on the settlement of bills unjustifiably extends the repayment period of the amounts spent “to absolutely unbearable limits”.