Asia-Plus news agency
November 8
ztransgaz [Uzbek gas supplier] is ready to supply Tajikistan with an additional 86m cu.m. of gas in November and 118m cu.m. of gas in December. An agreement to this effect was reached recently during a visit to Tashkent [the Uzbek capital] by Mahmadruzi Iskandarov, director-general of the Tajikgaz [Tajik Gas] state unitary enterprise.
The deputy chairman of Tajikgaz, Gulrukhsor Jonmahmadova, told Asia-Plus that prepayment was the compulsory condition. At the same time, domestic consumers' debts are not decreasing, but are growing. Jonmahmadova said that Tajik industrial enterprises owed Tajikgaz about 15m somoni [2.4 somoni equals one dollar] and people owed more than 66m somoni. The only honest payer, she said, was the Tajik Aluminium Plant. But the money transferred by the plant is not enough to pay the Uzbek supplier.
The Dushanbe cement and brick works and the Vakhsh nitric and mineral fertilizers plant owe Tajikgaz a lot of money. "It is to the consumers benefit for them to settle the debts," Jonmahmadova said.