WELCOME TO IWPR'S REPORTING CENTRAL ASIA, No. 506, August 23, 2007 BOYCOTT FOR KYRGYZ DEBT FUND Attempt to encourage public-spirited citizens to contribute funds to repay the national debt meets with a cool response. By Jipara Abdrakhmanova in Bishkek
KYRGYZ DOCTORS SEEK BETTER LIFE ABROAD Increasing numbers of medics are leaving for Russia and Kazakstan, reducing the quality of healthcare in their own country. By Gulnara Mambetalieva in Bishkek PRICE CONTROLS FOR TAJIK CAPITAL Attempts by the Dushanbe authorities to control inflation by fixing the cost of basic goods will not work, say analysts. By Ravshan Abdullaev and Nafisa Pisarejeva in Dushanbe **** IWPR RESOURCES ****************************************************************** SAHAR JOURNALISTS ASSISTANCE FUND: IWPR is establishing a fund, in honour of Sahar al-Haideri, to support journalist participants in its training and reporting programmes around the world. The Sahar Journalists Assistance Fund will be used to support local journalists in cases of exile or disability, or to assist their families in case of death in service. To find out more or donate please go to: http://www.iwpr.net/sahar.html NEWS BRIEFING CENTRAL ASIA is a new concept in regional reporting, comprising analysis and news behind the news in Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Available at: www.NBCentralAsia.net **** www.iwpr.net ******************************************************************** REPORTING CENTRAL ASIA RSS: http://www.iwpr.net/en/rca/rss.xml TURKMEN RADIO: INSIDE VIEW is an IWPR radio training and broadcast project for Turkmenistan. View at: http://www.iwpr.net/?p=trk&s=p&o=-&apc_state=henh RECEIVE FROM IWPR: Readers are urged to subscribe to IWPR's full range of free electronic publications at: http://www.iwpr.net/index.php?apc_state=henh&s=s&m=p GIVE TO IWPR: IWPR is wholly dependent upon grants and donations. For more information about how you can support IWPR go to: http://www.iwpr.net/donate.html **** www.iwpr.net ******************************************************************** BOYCOTT FOR KYRGYZ DEBT FUND Attempt to encourage public-spirited citizens to contribute funds to repay the national debt meets with a cool response. By Jipara Abdrakhmanova in Bishkek A Kyrgyz government initiative to pay off its massive foreign debt by asking people to pay money into a special fund is failing largely because people mistrust their rulers, observers say. Analysts say that low incomes and a deep mistrust of the government are the main reasons why most people are declining to contribute to a special government fund, opened at the end of May to collect donations to pay off the countrys crippling external debt. By the start of August, only around 152,000 soms, just under 4,000 US dollars, had been donated to the fund in total. On July 17, at a press conference in Bishkek, the head of Kyrgyz National Bank chairman Marat Alapaev said the special debt fund held a grand total of 5,000 soms or 132 dollars, which health ministry staff had donated out of their own salaries. Employees of the presidents office then paid in a similar sum after Finance Minister Akylbek Japarov urged government employees to be patriotic. Finally, fund-raising events held by the Kyrgyz diaspora in the Russian cities of Moscow and Samara on July 24 produced another 3,500 dollars. Kyrgyzstans external sovereign debt stood at more than two billion dollars in March this year. In June, the finance minister said the next three years would be the most difficult for Kyrgyzstan in terms of servicing the debt. The finance ministry says Kyrgyzstan has to repay the capital on its external debt by 2045. Eighty million US dollars nearly a tenth of total planned expenditures are to be earmarked from the government budget to service the national debt, including domestic as well as foreign obligations. In February, public pressure forced the government to abandon plans to sign up to the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries initiative, a debt-relief programme run by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. This could have cut Kyrgyz debt in half in return for certain reforms. At the time, President Kurmanbek Bakiev said that Kyrgyzstan risked losing face by committing to this initiative, and that the country was capable of solving its debt problem by itself. Alikbek Jekshenkulov, a former foreign minister and current head of the International Agency on Development and Policy, insists the voluntary scheme for collecting donations will create a sense of national unity and purpose. It will help raise spirits and unite the nation, he said. I am confident that each citizen of Kyrgyzstan will do their bit and contribute what they can to reducing the external debt burden. But a recent opinion poll by the Kyrgyz news agency 24.kg revealed that more than 60 per cent of respondents believed it is up to the government which incurred the debt in the first place to repay it. Tashimir Aytbaev, board chairman of the industrial bank Promstroybank, said the lack of transparency and accountability in government discouraged people from handing over their cash. . People need to know that the money is going to repay the debt, and not into someones pocket, he said. Ruslan Turbatov, head of the Foundation for International Community Assistance, which runs micro-credit schemes, said people felt no personal obligation to pay off the debt. The lack of communication between state institutions and the public, the absence of a transparent and trustworthy accounting system, and the high level of corruption have led to a situation where the overwhelming majority of citizens is in grave doubt that the funds received from external sources have been used appropriately, he said. Living standards are poor in Kyrgyzstan, and the average monthly wage is less than 100 dollars. Turbatov said that with such low salaries, it was unrealistic to expect people to club together and pay off the national debt. Abdygany Erkebaev, a former speaker of the Kyrgyz parliament, argued that those officials who mishandled the countrys finances and got the country into debt should be held accountable for the foreign debt problem. To date the authorities have not told us who took out the loans, when and under what terms, he said. Why are we collecting money while those who accrued these debts again duck out of it? Hadzhimurat Korkmazov, chairman of the parliamentary committee concerned with anti-corruption measures, also believes that those who took, misused. spent or embezzled the loans must be punished. They should repay misused loan funds. There has been no shortage of suggestions for raising repayment funds or simply not paying the loans back. One member of parliament has said a threat to start growing opium poppies might make Kyrgyzstans international creditors relent, while another thought the present government could legitimately renege on its debt commitments since it was the product of a revolution the popular revolt of March 2005 which ousted the then president Askar Akayev. More practical suggestions for finding money to make the debt repayments range from issuing government securities to tightening up budget management. Finance Minister Japarov has announced a new issue of special bonds, which will pay no interest to the holder so that the proceeds can be used to pay off the debt. Banker Aytbaev, on the other hand, says that the government must ensure economic growth, especially production, and thus increase its own tax and other revenues. Then it will be in a position to make special assignments from the budget for sovereign debt repayment. Turbatov calls in addition for measures to bring the presently massive grey economy out of the shadows, so that the government can tax these businesses. We cannot count on a significant increase in economic growth rates, and hence external debt repayment, as long as there are high levels of corruption exists in all branches of government, and as long as the bulk of the business sector is part of the shadow economy and evades taxes, he said. Economist Sapar Orozbakov believes the politicians and officials who have acquired wealth through illegal means should be stripped of their money, and these funds assigned to debt repayment. At the same time, Orozbakov accepts that there is no realistic quick fix for the problem. One way of generating funds would be for Kyrgyzstan to seek the repayment of its loans to other countries. We must mobilise our assets abroad, namely the debt owed by Ukraine and the Baltic states, which come to around 30 million dollars, he said. Like Aytbaev, Orozbakov says that in the end, Kyrgyzstans ability to pay its debt will depend on a period of sustained economic growth. If our country is capable of generating economic growth at rates of at least seven per cent a year, it can service its external debt without particular difficulty. Kyrgyzstan will gradually repay its debts without a substantial damage to economic and social development, he said. However, if current GDP growth trend is maintained [2.7 per cent in 2006], the country will not repay its old debts and will have to borrow more money and thus increase the size of its total debt. Jipara Abdrakhmanova is an IWPR contributor in Bishkek. KYRGYZ DOCTORS SEEK BETTER LIFE ABROAD Increasing numbers of medics are leaving for Russia and Kazakstan, reducing the quality of healthcare in their own country. By Gulnara Mambetalieva in Bishkek The Kyrgyz ministry of health is concerned that increasing numbers of medical staff are leaving the country in search of more lucrative work abroad, leaving people with inadequate access to healthcare. Doctors and nurses say low salaries in Kyrgyzstan are forcing them to seek employment in other countries, most in Russia and Kazakstan, but increasingly also further afield. The governments statistical committee reports that about 1,000 doctors and other qualified medical personnel left the country last year, and at least 600 more in the first six months of 2007. Kasymbek Mambetov, state secretary at the Ministry of Health, said that while emigration used to be commonest among healthcare staff in smaller towns and rural areas, where incomes are low and conditions arduous, the trend is increasingly affecting hospitals in the capital Bishkek. Kadicha Omuralieva, 40, a paediatrician at a polyclinic in Bishkek, is leaving for Moscow to start a new job. Ive been offered a job at a Moscow polyclinic, and Ive accepted it, she said. Many doctors from Kyrgyzstan are now leaving for Moscow and other Russian cities because doctors get paid so little. If I had an adequate salary, I wouldnt leave. In Kyrgyzstan doctors rarely get paid more than 100 US dollars a month, and many are forced to take a second job to make ends meet. By contrast, basic salaries for doctors working in Russia are about 6,000 to 8,000 US dollars a year. With allowances and regional weightings, that can reach 12,000 dollars. Almaz Ryspekov, 37, now works at a polyclinic in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, having left Kyrgyzstan three years ago. He used to have to moonlight to supplement his salary. When I was working in Talas regional hospital as an anaesthetist, my salary was about 1,000 soms [26 dollars a month at current rates]. At night, I would work as a self-employed taxi-driver so as to keep my family. I have two small children, and we didnt have enough money, he said. That all changed when a group of Russian doctors visited the hospital on a recruitment drive. They said wed earn 1,000 dollars [a month] and would also get a package of social benefits. I and three other doctors agreed straight off. Ive been working here for three years and Im not sorry I left, said Ryspekov. In the three years since he has been in Krasnoyarsk, he has bought a flat and a car and can afford to make trips home to Kyrgyzstan every year. Not everyone makes the transition so successfully. Zamirbek Sakimbaev, a traumatologist, left for Krasnoyarsk with Ryspekov, but subsequently returned home. Above all, we came back because of the climate - its very cold there. Besides, I couldnt get along with my colleagues . So I had to come back to Kyrgyzstan, he said. Recent graduates account for a high proportion of people leaving Kyrgyzstan to work abroad, and that applies to healthcare professionals as well. The three Kyrgyz universities that offer medical degrees produce about 1,000 graduates a year, who must complete two years of hospital internship after their five years of study. Nurlan Rakhmanov, a recently-qualified dentist at a clinic in Bishkek, is already dreaming of leaving. Ive been working for more than a year, but now I want to leave for Russia or Kazakstan and work there, he said. I wouldnt have left the country at any price, but its humiliating to have such a low salary. I need to get married, and I need to support my parents. Our government doesnt seem to care about doctors. He added, I know that many medics have left for Russia and they are well looked after. Juma Abdullaev, the head of the Association of Kyrgyz Diasporas in Kazakstan and Russia, told IWPR that getting a job in Russia is fairly easy, with plenty of job advertisements and recruitment agencies. There are huge lists of vacancies in almost every Russian newspaper and magazine and on the internet. Qualified doctors know where they are going and what theyll be doing there. They will be OK, he said. Abdullaev is concerned at the effect that the exodus of doctors will have on Kyrgyzstan, he understands their decision to go. I feel very sorry about it. Whos going to treat us if the doctors leave the country? he asked. On the other hand, I do feel sorry for them too. What are they to do if they dont have enough money to buy the bare essentials? Health ministry official Mambetov is especially concerned at the rising trend for doctors to leave the relative comfort of big cities like Bishkek. It is largely because of low pay and inadequate welfare provision, he said. One Bishkek resident told IWPR that working conditions for healthcare professions were poor even in the capital. "My sister worked for the emergency ambulance service. But because of a shortage of petrol, they could not answer emergency calls - and this was happening in Bishkek, not a remote village, he said. I know that because of the meagre salaries, many doctors left their jobs. Two of them [from the ambulance crew] left for Russia. Outside the main urban centres, things are many times worse. Many local hospitals lack doctors with key specialisms. Even just outside Bishkek, the village of Oktyabrsk has just one doctor for its 8,000 residents. According to Mambetov, The most distant regions are the most vulnerable. Chatkal, Toguz-Torous, Aktala and Chon-Alay family [should] have medical centres and doctors practices but there arent actually any family doctors there at all. Can you imagine that? A government programme to encourage young doctors to spend at least a few years working in rural areas has made little difference. Under the Young Doctors Deposit scheme launched in 2006, anyone who signs up for three years gets 80 dollars a month paid into a special account, which they can only touch when they have completed the agreed term. The programme has proved less than popular and fewer than half the 100 places available in 2007 were taken up. Mambetov said that to fill the gaps, hospital managers have to ask the doctors they have to work in specialist areas other than their own, paying them extra wages to provide cover. Thats how we cope with the situation, he said. Gulnara Mambetalieva is an IWPR contributor in Kyrgyzstan PRICE CONTROLS FOR TAJIK CAPITAL Attempts by the Dushanbe authorities to control inflation by fixing the cost of basic goods will not work, say analysts. By Ravshan Abdullaev and Nafisa Pisarejeva in Dushanbe A decision by the authorities in the Tajik capital Dushanbe to slash the cost of basic footstuffs in an attempt to control soaring prices will not provide an effective or lasting solution to the problem, say analysts. In recent months, the cost of food products has risen dramatically in Tajikistan, causing alarm to the authorities in a country where much of the food consumed is imported and the average monthly salary is just 148 somoni, or 45 US dollars. Tajik president Imomali Rahmon highlighted the problem at a recent government session. In response to the rising prices, Dushanbes mayor Mahmadsaid Ubaydullaev ordered price cuts on basic goods and a special commission is inspecting local markets to ensure that vendors comply. But analysts say this response has not resolved the underlying inflation problem, and has simply forced traders to find ways of short-changing their customers to cut their own losses. Spiralling prices in Tajikistan mean that people spend much of their wages on food. Even fruit and vegetables, which are grown locally and are traditionally cheap and plentiful in Tajikistan, have now become expensive. Last year, a large melon would have cost around four somoni about a dollar but now costs two and a half times that amount. Town dwellers are worse affected than people in rural areas, who can grow much of their own food. In Dushanbe, the price of beef shot up from 12 to 15 somoni (3.5 to 4.4 dollars) a kilogram over the course of July, while flour went from 55 somoni to 75 somoni a sack (from 16 to 22 dollars). However, following the price cuts at the start of August, beef is officially back at 12 somoni a kilo and flour has gone down slightly to 70 somoni a sack. While other regions of Tajikistan which have also seen price rises have not yet followed the Dushanbes lead by fixing prices, they are likely to do so if restrictions continue in the capital for any length of time. Bahriddin Valiev, head of the department of trade in the mayors administration, told IWPR that price-capping had increased peoples purchasing power. However, as often happens with price cuts, the effect has been to reduce availability. In the few first days following the enforced reductions, there was no fresh beef to be found at markets in Dushanbe. When stocks were replenished, the meat was of poorer quality. A market trader who gave his first name as Karim told IWPR that since prices were lowered, he had had to skimp on quality, and now has fewer customers as a result. To make a profit, I have to chop the meat so that there are more bones in it. Otherwise, one cant survive, he said. Prices fell only for retailers - wholesalers are still selling at high prices. Fazliddin Umarov, an engineer living in the capital, said he initially welcomed the news that the cost of meat was to go down, but was disappointed at the result. It became cheaper but the quality is very poor. Its fit only for dogs, he said. Previously, meat was expensive but the quality was high and one could choose what one wanted. Id like it to cost more but be better quality. Zinaida Gavrilova, a Dushanbe pensioner, can seldom afford to buy meat on a pension of just 35 somoni, ten dollars, a month, and said that since prices were slashed, she could no longer find it on sale. Customers can quietly pay a premium if they want good-quality foodstuffs. In the case of beef, the informal price is 15 somoni a kilo three somoni higher than the price fixed by the authorities. Dushanbe residents say the same applies to other food items. The poor quality of beef has prompted Umar to buy chicken instead. I think it will only get worse. Prices have been curbed, but things will get worse as the Ramadan period approaches, youll see, he said. Food prices traditionally increase in Tajikistan ahead of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which this year begins on September 13. Prices remain high through the month as people observing the fast by day buy in food for evening feasts and especially the celebrations that mark the end of the period. Shokirjon Hakimov, deputy head of the Social Democratic Party, said the decision to fix prices reflects a genuine desire on the part of the authorities to improve peoples standard of living. But he warned that decisions imposed by government run contrary to the rules of market economics, where prices are set by demand and supply. Economist Rustam Babajanov took a similar view, saying that governments in more advanced economies use more sophisticated mechanisms to influence prices such as tax rates. He said this did not happen in Tajikistan because neither officials nor businesspeople had the right level of market awareness. Another economist, Hojimuhammad Umarov, attributes recent inflationary trends to external factors such as rising international prices of wheat and petroleum products, which are imported mainly from Russia and Kazakhstan. He warns that if inflation goes unchecked, people may take to the streets to vent their frustration. At the same time, he does not see the price-capping policy as viable beyond a few months, and as long as it is in effect, availability and quality will suffer. Look at the quality - even now, theyre slaughtering only the old cattle or oxen used for ploughing. The meat tastes bad, he said. What next? They might start selling donkey meat under the guise of beef. Ravshan Abdullaev and Nafisa Pisarejeva are IWPR contributors in Tajikistan. **** www.iwpr.net ******************************************************************** REPORTING CENTRAL ASIA provides the international community with a unique insiders' perspective on the region. Using our network of local journalists, the service publishes news and analysis from across Central Asia on a weekly basis. The service forms part of IWPR's Central Asia Project based in Almaty, Bishkek, Tashkent and London, which supports media development and encourages better local and international understanding of the region. IWPR's Reporting Central Asia is supported by the UK Community Fund. The service is published online in English and Russian. The opinions expressed in Reporting Central Asia are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the publication or of IWPR. REPORTING CENTRAL ASIA: Editor-in-Chief: Anthony Borden; Managing Editor: Yigal Chazan; Senior Editor: John MacLeod; Central Asia Editor: Saule Mukhametrakhimova; Project Director: Kumar Bekbolotov. IWPR Project Development and Support: Executive Director: Anthony Borden; Strategy & Assessment Director: Alan Davis; Chief Programme Officer: Mike Day. **** www.iwpr.net ******************************************************************** IWPR builds democracy at the frontlines of conflict and change through the power of professional journalism. IWPR programs provide intensive hands-on training, extensive reporting and publishing, and ambitious initiatives to build the capacity of local media. Supporting peace-building, development and the rule of law, IWPR gives responsible local media a voice. 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