DUSAHNBE, February 21, Asia-Plus – the Government of Tajikistan has allocated $50 million for the first stage of completing the construction of the Roghun hydroelectric power station (HPS) on the Vakhsh River, Rashid Gulov, deputy engineer-in-chief with Barqi Tojik (Tajik electric systems) power holding, said in an interview with Asia-Plus.
According to him, the funds were provided in the beginning of the week. “According to some sources, further $50 million will be provided in the near future,” said Gulov, “Thus, Tajikistan begins work on completing the construction of the Roghun HPS with use of national funds.”
We will recall that President Rahmonov last October noted that the final work on the Roghun power plant will begin next year with use of the national funds. The cost of the half-finished facility is US $804 million; a further US $2 billion is needed to complete the construction. Rahmonov did not mention the Russian aluminum company RusAl, which agreed in October 2004 to invest to complete the construction of Roghun. The sides have not yet come to an agreement on type of dam and evaluation of a volume of half-finished construction. The agreement with RusAl concerns the first stage of the construction of the station, but for the second and later stages Tajikistan has the right to define itself whose service to enlist.
In the meantime, according to the RusAl representative office in Dushanbe, the agreement on completing the construction of the Roghun HPS has not been canceled. “Negotiations between the Government of Tajikistan and the Russian company are ongoing,” Aleksandr Kasatkin, a spokesman for the RusAl representative office in Dushanbe, said.
We will recall that commenting on the issue that some Tajik officials have criticized RusAl for failing to observe an October 2004 agreement, Russian Ambassador to Tajikistan Ramazan Abdulatipov said in Dushanbe on January 30 that Russia is better placed than other countries to complete the construction of the Roghun HPS. According to him, Russian ministries are preparing a new bilateral agreement on Roghun for presentation to their Tajik colleagues and ratification in the first half of 2007.
