Tajikistan has exempted Open Joint-Stock Company (OJSC) Sangtudinskaya GES-1, which operates the Sangtuda-1 Hydroelectric Power Plant (HPP), from paying interest on tax arrears in 2021.
OJSC Sangtudinskaya GES-1 has been granted tax breaks due to a steady rise in debt of Barqi Tojik (the state-owned utility responsible for generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity in Tajikistan) to the company for its electricity.
The 2021 budget says the government will not charge interest on the company’s tax debt, which has arisen during the supply of electricity to Barqi Tojik.
In accordance with Tajikistan’s Tax Code, if the tax is not paid on time, interest is charged for each day of delay. Interest is charged starting from the first day of delay. The debtor pays 0.05% of the tax debt amount for each calendar day.
According to data from the Tax Committee under the Government of Tajikistan, Sangtudinskaya GES-1’s tax debt has amounted to some 116 million somonis (equivalent to more than 11 million U.S. dollars).
As of December 1, Barqi Tojik has reportedly owed more than 1.64 billion somonis (equivalent to more than 156 million U.S. dollars) to OJSC Sangtudinskaya GES-1.
OJSC Sangtudinskaya GES-1 noted in late October that average pay (including offsetting, over the first ten months of this year has not exceeded 44 percent that “continues leading to rise in the debt.”
Barqi Tojik is the monopoly buyer of electricity generated by the Sangtuda-1 hydropower plant.
The Sangtuda-1 HPP, consisting of four units with total capacity of 670 MW, was officially commissioned on July 31, 2009.
The construction of the Sangtuda-1 hydropower plant located some 110 kilometers southeast of Dushanbe began in the late 1980s. By the early 1990s, only 20% of the construction work had been completed, and further construction was suspended due to a civil war that broke out in Tajikistan in the early 1990s. The talks between Russia and Tajikistan on completing the construction of Sangtuda-1 HPP began in 2003 and in 2004 the parties signed an inter-governmental agreement.
Russian-Tajik OJSC Sangtudinskaya GES-1 was established to complete the construction of the Santuda-1 power plant. Russia’s Inter RAO YeES and the Ministry of Energy and Industries of Tajikistan signed an agreement on the establishment of the company in Dushanbe on February 16, 2005. Russia owns 75% percent of the shares minus one share and Tajikistan assumes the 25% ownership interest plus one share in Sangtudinskaya GES-1.
