DUSHANBE, February 14, 2009, Asia-Plus — Farrukh Saidov, a senior expert from Tajik think tank, considers that the International Crisis Group’s (ICG) assessment of the present situation in Tajikistan does not correspondent to the facts.
A new report by the ICG titled “Tajikistan: On the Road to Failure” that was released on February 12 warns that Tajikistan is at risk of social unrest and its government is in danger of collapse.
The report, in particular, says that energy infrastructure is near total breakdown for the second winter running, and it is likely migrant laborer remittances, the driver of the country’s economy in recent years, will fall dramatically as a result of the world economic crisis. The ICG says some 70 percent of Tajikistan”s population lives in poverty in the countryside and that hunger is now spreading even to previously prosperous cities.
According to the report, President Emomali Rahmon may be facing his greatest challenge since the civil war of 1992-97. “At the very least the government will be confronted with serious economic problems, and the desperately poor population will be condemned to yet more deprivation. At worst the government runs the risk of social unrest.” There are few indications that the Rahmon administration is up to this challenge the report said, noting that to address the situation, the international community – both at the level of international organizations and governments – should ensure any assistance reaches those who truly need it, place issues of governance and corruption at the centre of all contacts with the Tajik government, and initiate an energetic dialogue with President Rahmon on democratization.
Donors need to address corruption in a coherent and unified way if they want to avoid seeing the country slip back into failure. A new framework for aid, based on strict conditionality, is urgently needed, the report said.
“The government pays little, if any, attention to these problems. Ministries and state bodies that are of direct political or financial interest to the top leaders and their allies function well, notably the security bloc, along with the highly profitable state-owned aluminum smelter and several other state firms. Other sectors, particularly social welfare, health and education, are ignored and underfunded.”
The report recommends the government to institute a policy of complete transparency in the economic sector, including a full, public accounting of all income from state-owned enterprises including the Tajikistan Aluminum Company, Talco (both onshore and offshore); dismiss and if necessary take legal action against officials implicated in corruption scandals and investigate any allegations regarding capital illegally transferred abroad; prepare emergency measures that address the possibility that a large number of Tajiks will not be able to travel abroad to work in 2009, including both long-term steps such as job creation and short-term measures such as, if necessary, feeding and similar support programs to lessen the impact of a further major growth of joblessness; and address urgently the disastrous state of the educational and health sector, which threatens to create a new wave of social problems in coming generations.
In the meantime, Farrukh Saidov, the head of the department for studying social sphere and labor market problems within the Center for Strategic Studies, does not agree with the report’s findings and says that the “factors for collapse of the Tajik government” listed in the reported were not well-founded.
“There ought not to forget that in most cases, the government has taken and is continuing to take into consideration opinion of international financial institutions,” said the expert, “If we go wrong way, it looks as if recommendations are not so useful.”
Continuing the issue of international organizations’ recommendations, the expert touched upon the Roghun hydroelectricity project. “To complete construction of the Roghun hydroelectric power station (HPS) as soon as possible serves our national interests,” said Saidov, “However, there are some international organization that recommend us not to do this.” “In 2008 alone, we spent some 100 million somoni for construction of the Roghun HPS. It means that sooner or later we should come out of the crisis situation.”
Besides, the country is also carrying out work to overcome communication deadlock, he said. This work is also of strategic priority.
As far as the corruption problem is concerned, the expert admitted that this anti-social phenomenon is quite widespread in the country.
