DUSHANBE, July 7, 2014, Asia-Plus -- Frequent replacement of management of Open Joint-Stock Company (OJSC) Barqi Tojik (the state-owned utility responsible for generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity in Tajikistan) will not help bring the energy sector out of crisis, member of Tajikistan’s lower chamber (Majlisi Namoyandagon) of parliament, Ismoil Talbakov, told Asia-Plus in an interview, commenting on the recent replacement of top managers of Barqi Tojik.

According to him, the government ought to take cardinal measures to bring the energy sector out of a lingering crisis, find ways to modernize the country’s power system, ensure prompt payment for electric power consumption, work out correct pricing in the energy sector, resolve power theft problems, and resolve the power loss problems.       

“During summer period, Tajikistan loses approximately 4 billion kWh of electric power due to idle water discharges,” noted MP Talbakov noted.  “I am sure that if the government halves electricity prices for commercial and industrial enterprises during summer period, generation of electricity will increase in the country several times that will promote increase in the industrial production and many industrial enterprises will operate in two or three shifts and people will be provided with jobs.”