Page 1 of
3 Tajikistan struggles for
power By John Helmer
MOSCOW - It's difficult to run a country
in the dark. Politicians who leave voters in the
cold, unable to cook or keep warm, become
unpopular with the flick of a switch. Swarms of
secret police can't offset the damage that having
no electricity causes.
President Emomali
Rahmon (Rahmonov), 55, who has run Tajikistan for
the past 15 years, understands the problem, and
suspects his rivals of manipulating electricity
supply to Tajikistan with the aim of toppling him,
as well as those of his extended
family with the ambition to
keep power for another generation.
The
foreign powers with a stake in who rules
Tajikistan see the same thing; they include the
United States, Russia, China, India and the
European Union. They are all bidding the billions
of dollars required to build the dams and power
stations to replenish Tajikistan's energy supply,
and enable its ruler to turn the tap and the
switch in the opposite direction - exporting water
and power across the border, thus subjecting their
rulers to influence and political pressure.
Turning the lights and water on and off
isn't a political problem that is limited to
Tajikistan, for it impacts on neighboring
Uzbekistan, together with Afghanistan and Pakistan
to the south, Iran to the west, Kyrgyzstan to the
north and China to the east.
Just how dark
it was in Tajikistan last winter became apparent,
before the spring thaw, when the volume in key
dams whose waters generate hydroelectricity sank
too low to turn the turbines and allow the power
plants to operate safely. Without enough water,
there wasn't enough electricity. The Tajik
government then applied to neighboring Uzbekistan
to buy the additional power it needed for light
and heat. The Uzbeks refused to deliver the extra
quantities, claiming they did not have the
necessary technical infrastructure, and that they
needed the surplus for their own winter
requirements.
But Tajik sources accuse the
Uzbeks of intentionally disrupting the power grids
linking the two countries to allow cutoffs. The
real reason Uzbekistan is limiting its power
sharing with Tajikistan, the Tajiks believe, is
that Uzbekistan is afraid that Tajikistan will dam
too much of the headwater for hydropower
generation, and reduce the water flow on which
Uzbekistan depends to irrigate its food
production.
No one should blame the
Uzbeks, for this is exactly how Tajik water was
designed to flow during Soviet planning days.
Hydropower in Tajikistan was operated primarily as
an irrigation system, and power generation was
secured by other sources, also located regionally,
but not inside Tajikistan. The system of energy
and water exchange worked relatively well between
the Central Asian republics in the Soviet model.
The independence the republics then
grabbed with the fall of the union in 1990-91 came
with an energy price tag some republics could
afford more than others. In Tajikistan's case, it
was least self-sufficient of all; the country also
lacked the exportable fossil-fuel sources the
others enjoyed to export for cash.
The
strategic problems for Tajikistan have been, and
remain today, the desperate under-capitalization
of its energy resource sector, and dependence on a
single, electricity devouring plant for exportable
product; that's the Tajikistan Aluminum Plant
(TadAZ, Talco).
Since electricity accounts
for most of the cost of producing aluminum, the
only reason a country unable to provide enough
power to its people would tolerate a plant
consuming power at a discount is that everyone
shares the income and profits of the plant.
In Tajikistan, the nexus linking water,
electricity and aluminum turns out to be a state
secret - and a presidential monopoly.
A
World Bank study of the regional electricity
export potential in Central Asia, dated December
2004, also exposes a significant embarrassment for
those Western powers intent on pulling Tajikistan
out of its former Soviet mold, and beyond Russian
influence.
For the next decade at least,
the Washington report suggests, talk of
Tajikistan's leap into the power-exporting league
is fanciful. The best it can hope for with the
means available is the reduction of power losses -
about 28% of current power produced in Tajikistan
is lost, mostly by technical failures in the
distribution system, discounting and non-payments;
and by the increase of power supplies through two
Tajik hydropower plants, initially started in the
Soviet era, and under construction or planning by
Russians today. These are the Rogun and Sangtuda
plants.
Even more embarrassing, the small
print of the World Bank study pointed a finger at
the Tajik ruler, Rahmon. Calculating the marginal
generation costs for producing electricity in
Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and China, with the
landed cost of exporting Tajik electricity to
those countries from Rogun and Sangtuda, the bank
concluded: "While Central Asian supplies should be
cost competitive in these markets, the cost
advantage is not overwhelming." Noting that this
electricity trade is "more politically sensitive
than general trade", the report warned the
construction of new power-exporting plants will
depend on "supply security concerns", and the
"perception that the political climate and
business environment in the exporting countries
are stable".
In more than one study of
Tajikistan that year, the World Bank cast doubt on
the country's stability on account of its endemic
corruption and the place Rahmon took at the top of
the state structure.
Fast-forward three
years, and though Tajikistan remains at the bottom
of the global corruption league, the World Bank is
now leading a cheer squad of international
investors and donors to put cash in the places
where Rahmon has emptied it - the aluminum plant
Talco, first of all.
While Talco has been
busy turning electricity into aluminum for Rahmon
to sell, he has been unable to solve the seasonal
shortage of electricity for everyone else. Several
steps have been taken by the Tajik government to
resolve the immediate power shortage and to avoid
a similar one this coming winter.
One
option is to persuade Uzbekistan to reopen the
power transmission network connecting the Marry
Hydroelectric station in Turkmenistan with
Uzbekistan's Karikul station. Tajikistan was long
able to purchase electricity from this grid, but
not since 2002. This past March, Uzbekistan denied
Tajikistan the provision of transit electricity
from Turkmenistan.
A month later,
agreement was reached between the two governments
to restore the regional power grid that goes
across Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
According to Barki
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
