DUSHANBE, December 9, 2009, Asia-Plus — The government ought not to count on people’s funds for completing construction of the Roghun hydroelectric power plant (HPP), because the majority of the country’s population cannot afford to donate money to Roghun or obtain its shares, Rahmatillo Zoirov, the leader of the Social-Democratic Party (SDPT), remake data news conference in Dushanbe on December 8.
According to him, counting on monthly wages of citizens of the country is inexpedient and immoral.
“True, there are well-to-do men in the country, but they will scarcely invest their funds in this project because they are not sure in good results of their investments,” said Zoirov, “Several years ago, many people in the country bought shares in the Sangtuda-1 HPP, responding to the government’s call. I invested US$2,300 in this project, personally. However, I have not yet known what happened to my money and what dividends I can expect to have.”
Besides, in order to raise public funds, the government should at least publish the charter of open joint-stock company Roghun HPP.
Zoirov is confident that the government has other sources that could be used for construction of the Roghun HPP. “For example, there are some 100,000 hectares of unused lands in the country and under the current acute shortage of land plots, these lands could be sold to the population at the earliest possible time and all the proceeds could go to implementing the Roghun project,” he said.
“Moreover, if to take into consideration that earlier, the Roghun HPP (along with the Norak HPP and the Tajik aluminum smelter) had been declared public property, in accordance with the country’s legislation, it cannot be joint-stock company, and therefore, its shares cannot be sold.”
He also noted that Uzbek ecologists were recently granted a quota of 15 seats in a new parliament of Uzbekistan that would be elected next year. “There are no prizes for guessing that they plan to form a group of ecologists within the parliament that using support from international organizations, will seek suspension of construction of large hydropower facilities in the Central Asian region, in particular the Roghun HPP,” said the SDPT leader, “Tajikistan must be ready for such developments.”
According to him, if the SDPT manages to win five seats necessary for forming a group within the parliament, lawyers of this party will be able to prove appropriateness of the Roghun hydroelectricity project and other hydropower facilities in Tajikistan on the basis of international law.
