Tariff rise - 1:0 government win

Kyrgyzstan met Friday 13th down in the mouth. Duh! Yesterday Kyrgyz government sprang another surprise, rising electricity and heating tariffs at least twice. The news shocked everybody, especially the state-paid workers, whose salary does not last even two weeks.

Parliament deputies appeared to be no less concerned about the issue. Iskhak Masaliev, the leader of the Communist fraction of parliament, who demanded immediate explanation, was certainly among them. Fortunately the lawmakers supported the idea, which brought the prime-minister, Daniyar Usenov, and his team to the parliament by midday.

It took the head of the government more than 2 hours to clarify the reasons of the unpopular decision. The prime-minister did not tell anything new explaining the forcing circumstances of the tariff rise. “Country’s power system is in danger. Taking no measures to revive the sector we might repeat the disaster of the Sayano-Shushenskaya power station”, Usenov said, recalling the former government, which started using a medium term policy already in 2007. According to which the tariffs should have been increasing by 12 % every 6 months during 5 years, but for some reason the plan did not succeed. The tariffs have not changed for 7 years and the current state of energy sector does not allow any waiting. If we continue paying 70 tyins, we will run out of power,” he added.

Then the deputies were showered with figures, proving that the new prices were not made out of whole cloth, but counted out. Production of 1 gigacolorie of heat requires coal at 1,155 soms, oil-fuel at 1,520 soms, natural gas at 2,217 soms, electric power at 817 soms, and central heating at 500 soms.

Expecting a negative reaction from the deputies, the prime-minister noted that the government did not forget to support the citizens. “Government is going to allocate 1.5 billion soms for implementation of this plan. We have already sent this suggestion to the president,” he said.

However, despite the resolute and firm speech of the head of the government some deputies have not approved this kind of initiative. According to Ibragim Junusov, people already owe a lot to the power system. “Tariff rising will not help people to pay their debts, but double them instead. I doubt that this is a good way to control losses in this sphere,” the lawmaker said.

Iskhak Masaliev, leader of the Communist party of Parliament supported his college: “I am afraid the situation will appear to be much more complicated when it comes to realization of the project. It would be more rational to install electric meters in houses first. Probably then there would be no need to raise tariffs so drastically,” he said.

Irina Karamushkina stood up for people suggesting to cut the deputies and government members’ salaries down to teachers’ earnings. So the officials could try walking in their shoes.

While the parliament argued about abrupt electricity and heat tariffs’ rise, the president Bakiev signed a new social security bill and tasked the government to raise not 1.5 billion soms, as the cabinet primarily asked, but 2.5 billions. It will slightly relieve the tension and allow essential pecuniary compensations to vulnerable social groups.