Modern state, according to a well known formula, consists not only of army, police, customs, finance, but also – and that is equally important – of its infrastructure and energetic system. From this point of view, Georgia doesn’t appear to be a completely sovereign state, as the government sold off the major part of the energetic communications system to private owners.
On the other hand, Georgian citizens were granted their basic needs in electricity and gas supplies only after this privatization, inspired by the new government. During the 1990s people were almost deprived of these supplies due to the interior policy of President Shevardnadze, implying firm state property on all strategic objects.
The cat that catches the mice
After declaring independence from USSR a whole generation grew up traumatized by systematic blackouts and interruptions in heating. Nowadays such problems do not exist in Georgia: the RAO UES of Russia (Unified Energy System) bought the capital’s energy supply network ‘Telasi’ from American AES in 2003 and resolved energy problems of Tbilisi. RAO UES services are expensive, but they are much better Shevardnadze six-hour a day seven months a year electricity delivery system.
The new government adopted ancient Roman ‘Pecunia non olet’ principle and enriched it with Chinese popular wisdom ‘No matter the color, a cat should catch the mice’. Even during the armed conflict of 2008 there was no confiscation and nationalization of RAO UES property, though the law ‘On occupation’ created all necessary prerequisites for it.
Opposition leaders posed a direct question: “If Russia is an aggressor and occupied 20% of our territories, why shouldn’t we confiscate the property of Russian enterprises as compensation?”
“Because this cat can catch mice» is the possible response. The government excluded the major Russia-Georgia-Armenia pipeline from the list of non-commercial strategic objects and put it up for sale and Russian “Gazprom’ is the most possible buyer. Georgian contract with RAO UES on the Inghur hydroelectric power plant was postponed only because of the Abkhaz opposition to it.
Today RAO UES and its subsidiaries possess a whole series of Georgian electricity facilities and have contract for construction of 3 power plants.
Everything but the conscience
Almost identical state of affairs exists in the gas delivery network. All regional gas delivery systems are owned by Russian ‘Itera’ of Azerbaijani SOCAR while the owners of the central ones are connected with ‘Gazprom’. The rumor has it thet ‘Gazprom’ is intended on buying the BP’s share in the ‘Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan’ oil-pipeline.
The mobile telephony is one of the integral parts of infrastructure, and Russian ‘Beeline’ is on its way to become the major Georgian telecommunication operator.
It is possible that Georgian authorities has taken the famous phrase of ex-State Economic Reform Minister, Kakha bendukidze, as their credo; “We should sell everything but the conscience”.
Georgia didn’t loose anything in this vortex of privatization: all citizens received heat and light while during the 08.08.08 war, unlike the Yugoslavian events, not a single bomb detonated near the energetic network facilities owned by Russian companies.
Georgy Kalatozishvili, Tbilisi, exclusively to VK
