Kyrgyzstan Appeals for International Aid to Prevent Energy Crisis
Excerpt from report, headlined “A helping hand. Sixty million dollars are needed. Help with everything you can”, by privately- owned daily Kyrgyz newspaper Vecherniy Bishkek website on 19 August
The [Kyrgyz] government has officially appealed to international organizations for help in preventing an energy crisis in the country.
“Given that the Toktogul reservoir will not be able to collect [additional] 2bn cubic metres of water by the beginning of the heating period [November 2008], the government has worked out a series of measures. [Currently there are a little more that 7bn cu.m. of water in the reservoir]. They include a 33-per cent limit on the supply of electricity, which will be carried out by way of rotated power cuts, and a ban on the use of electric heaters [in private houses]. The measures also include increasing the capacities of the heat and power plants in Bishkek and Osh, which needs over 60m dollars. Of this sum, the government will try to get 15m dollars from the state budget, ” the minister [for industry, energy and fuel resources, Saparbek Balkibekov,] has said at a meeting with members of a donor council.
“The reason for the shortage of resources is a reduction in the production of electricity on the domestic market and for export. Due to this, income from electricity production has decreased considerably. Also, coal went up in price by about 80 per cent and fuel oil by more than two-fold a year. Equipment at the heat and power plant, which has never carried that heavy load, needs urgent repairs.
If the government measures are carried out, 6bn cubic metres of water will remain in the Toktogul reservoir by 1 April 2009, which is an admissible norm.
[Passage omitted: The World Bank decided to allocate 5bn dollars to Kyrgyzstan for preventing an energy crisis]
Originally published by Vecherniy Bishkek website, Bishkek, in Russian 19 Aug 08.
(c) 2008 BBC Monitoring Central Asia. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All rights Reserved.