Know the Law, can negotiate? – Enlist
By 12 a.m. the same August day the heat approached 30 degree C, with no prospect of replacing 56-years old utterly rusted water pipe, and still no running water…
“municipality partly owns constructions in majority of urban buildings “
” local municipalities are only legitimate providers of
building maintenance services “
While state regulations require replacing every 25 years such water distribution pipe network’ (pipes made of iron), the home-owner must abstain from hiring private plumber to fix the leakage under her bed. Currently, municipality partly owns certain constructions in majority of urban buildings with private flats: load carrying structures, elements, ossatures, supporting framework. Therefore local municipalities are legitimate providers of building maintenance services to allocated buildings, and municipality regulates these tariffs to be paid by households. Households must pay for these services on monthly basis, notwithstanding of quality or volume of services granted, if any. Surely, local municipality providers are not in a hurry to fulfil its obligations.
“ dwellers of nearby located building had been deprived of
tape water for 10 days in a row”
…So instead of replacing this utterly rusted pipe, when municipal plumbers finally arrived, they intended to fix the cracks in existing one, because of “absence of the new pipe”. The lawyer rejected this generous offer, as she was not prepared having another water leak within 25 years, and officials in local municipal service were happy to forget about this accident. Needless to say, residents of this building were extremely uneasy to the end of the next day still without running water. Coincidently, nearby located building had been deprived of tape water for 10 days in a row before the accident happened in the lawyer’ flat.
Soviet-era municipal services provider
Behemoth with style
For the home-owner the question loomed: how to get local municipal service provider to do its job? As it turned out, stopping water leakage was the start of the quest on handling water distribution pipe’ accident.
“to stop water leakage was the start “
“to get back tape water… takes to get municipal service
Mandarin on your side”
Under the law the whole undertaking to have back tape water after the municipal pipe accident may take getting on your side municipal service Mandarin and negotiating with municipal service provider. As a last resort household may need to complaint to the Major, who is both: the Head of city council and the Head of Municipal governing body, and comprises political and executive power of the capital of the country. This no power-sharing might be quite convenient. People know the trick of persuading municipal officials to behave. It is enough to complaint to Major administration by phone or by internet.
Sticks and carrots from Major
Since progressive business-minded Generation X Major was elected in 2014, he started rearranging soviet-era municipal behemoth. One of innovations is introducing performance-related ratings for directors of local municipalities’ service providers, with customer service ratings sensitive to household complaints. So households’ opinions matter, as directors of municipalities’ service providers are to compete with each other for ratings, and the best municipal service provider is subject to significant bonuses.
“directors of municipalities’ service providers are
to compete with each other for ratings”
“plumber …in style …to provide …with timely … consultancy on plumbing.”
After this stick and carrot exercise, the lawyer has finally got a water supply restored. After receiving from the tired lawyer cash fee for his rather poor quality works, the plumber promptly replied in style, promising to be always available by phone, and to provide the lawyer with timely … consultancy on plumbing.
To be continued….
