Open Joint-Stock Holding Company Barqi Tojik (state-controlled utility responsible for generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity in Tajikistan).reportedly reduced 1,030 employees in a year to December 31, 2017. As of December 31, 2017, 11,178 employees work for Barqi Tojik.
An official source at Barqi Tojik says the company’s staff has been reduced in the framework of the plan on restructuring Barqi Tojik.
“Staff reduction is aimed at, first of all, improving the financial situation of the company,” the source added.
Recall, the Government of Tajikistan has ordered to restructure Barqi Tojik. The government’s decree that was signed in late April this year provides for splitting the power holding into three entities: generation; transmission; and distribution.
The Ministry of Energy and Water Resources, Barqi Tojik Power Holding and the Tax Committee under the Government of Tajikistan are charged with determining property rights and duties of the newly established joint-stock companies within a three-month period and submit them to the State Committee on Investments and State-owned Property Management (GosKomInvest).
The goverment endorsed the plan of individual restructuring of Barqi Tojik in August 2011 in order to improve the company’s financial performance and attract private investments.
Barqi Tojik was supposed to be restructured in three phases: commercialization (2011-2013); competition (2014-2015); and privatization (2016-2018). A contract for implementation of this plan was awarded to Corporate Solutions.
As of July 1, 2018, a total debt of Barqi Tojik amounts to more than 15.1 billion somoni (equivalent to more than 1.6 billion U.S. dollars).
Barqi Tojik now owes more than 1 billion somoni to Open Joint-Stock Company (OJSC) Sangtudinskaya GES-1 alone.
Sangtudinskaya GES-1, which operates the Sangtuda-1 hydroelectric power plant (HPP), says Barqi Tojik’s debt has increased 265 million somoni (equivalent to some 30 million U.S. dollars) in nine months to September 30, reaching 1.029 billion somoni (equivalent to 110 million U.S. dollars).
Besides, Barqi Tojik owes 1.221.5 billion somoni to the Sangtuda-2 HPP, which has been built with help of Iranian specialists, and 1.8 billion somoni to Open Joint-Stock Company (OJSC) Orienbonk.
