Soaring Energy Costs Anger Kyrgyz

Sharp increases in the price of electricity and central heating have left many in Kyrgyzstan struggling to keep up with the cost of living.



Since the beginning of 2010, the price for electricity has risen 100 per cent and the cost of central heating has shot up by 500 per cent.



The Kyrgyz government says it has been forced to cut subsidies and pass on the real cost of utilities to the consumer so as to cope with the effects of the world economic crisis and also build up funds to invest in the energy sector. Officials say it costs more to generate electricity and provide hot water than business and domestic customers pay. The increases match the cost price, they say.



Consumers are less than enamoured of the scheme. A straw poll of 63 people conducted by IWPR on the streets of Bishkek produced a unanimously negative response.



“What have I got to be happy about?” responded a female pensioner who lives on her own. “I get 2,500 soms [56 US dollars] a month…. I don’t have enough to live on. And now they’ve added on 130 soms and I’ll have to pay 350 soms [monthly] for hot water.”



Prime Minister Daniyar Usenov said he was aware of how unpopular the move had been.



“Today every family in Kyrgyzstan is cursing Usenov’s government because it introduced radical measure for increasing tariffs,” the prime minister acknowledged at a meeting in the energy ministry on January 21.



Gulbayra Tynaeva, a 50-year old single mother from Bishkek who works in a shop, is one of many people having difficulty making ends meet after her family budget was hit by the price hikes.



Her heating and electricity bill for January was 40 US dollars, compared with her previous bills of around 18 dollars a month. She also has to pay for gas, water and phone from a monthly salary of 134 dollars, about the national average. After deducting other expenses such as her son’s school fees and travel, she is left with around 29 dollars to buy food.



“I buy only the most basic stuff and even that’s expensive – potatoes, sugar, flour and oil,” said Tynaeva, adding that the family had not eaten meat for two months. “Do we have to die of starvation?”



To soften the blow, groups identified as vulnerable such as pensioners and public sector workers – who earn less than the monthly average – will receive payments from a 60 million dollar fund. However, the compensation payments work out at just four dollars a month, over the four winter months, to help with heating costs.



A Bishkek resident on 56 dollar monthly pension said the money was simply not enough. After paying her bills, she said she had 15 dollars left.



“You just about have to go out and start begging,” she said.



Ibragim Junusov, a member of parliament from the ruling Ak Jol party says the government is considering allowing pensioners and businesses to spread their winter electricity payments over the whole year.



Businesses have also felt the impact of electricity price increases and have decided to pass them on to customers from February.



“Electricity costs account for eight per cent of the cost of the product,” said a bakery owner who gave her first name as Gulbara.



She said she held prices down in January, but will now have to raise them to avoid going into the red.



Energy expert Jamakadyr Akeneev predicts that the revenue earned by hiking electricity tariffs will be cancelled out by the associated price rises for basic foodstuffs such as bread, milk and cooking oil.



“Living standards will decline and discontent will rise,” he warned.



Opposition parties have vowed to campaign against the government’s decision.



Azimbek Beknazarov, the leader of the opposition alliance United People’s Movement, UPM, criticised the government for introducing the increases without public consultation, and said opposition groups would do all that they can to reverse the decision.



“I meet a lot of ordinary people, particularly in the villages, who say they aren’t going to pay and will just steal electricity,” he said.



Beknazarov recalled that one of the demands in the March 2005 “Tulip Revolution”, when Askar Akaev was ousted as president by a popular uprising and current head of state Kurmanbek Bakiev came to power was to reduce utility rates and provide the entire population with electricity.



“President Bakiev has not done this,” he said. “On the contrary, by privatising the energy sector and increasing prices, he is doing what Akaev didn’t have time to do.”



Opposition parties are planning to make the price rises one of the main talking-points of an assembly they are holding on March 17. Participants are expected to write to the Kyrgyz president demanding that this and other issues be addressed. If there is no response, the United People’s Movement, the main opposition bloc, says it will stage public protests.



Timur Toktonaliev is an IWPR-trained journalist in Kyrgyzstan.