BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 27. Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev criticized the management of the country's energy sector on Monday, saying persistent power outages stem from weak governance rather than a lack of funding.
This was reflected in the statement published by the official channel of the Press Secretary to the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan following a government meeting on the industry's priorities.
Chairing a videoconference with government officials, Mirziyoyev said Uzbekistan had carried out sweeping reforms in the energy sector over the past decade, opening the industry to private investors and foreign companies through a series of legislative changes.
According to the president, the government has attracted $23 billion in foreign investment into the energy sector and commissioned 9.5 gigawatts of new power generation capacity, enough to meet the country's domestic electricity demand.
Mirziyoyev said the government had also allocated 30 trillion soums (about $2.4 billion) to modernize electricity and gas networks, substations, transformers and gas distribution facilities in recent years, describing the amount as six times higher than total investment made in the previous 25 years.
Despite the spending, the president said the sector continued to suffer from poor management and inadequate oversight.
"The problem in the energy sector is not funding, because we provide whatever resources are needed. The problem is the management of the system," Mirziyoyev said.
He criticized officials at the Energy Ministry and its regional branches for failing to ensure proper execution and accountability, saying both residents and businesses remained dissatisfied with the quality of electricity and gas services.
Mirziyoyev noted that nearly 4,000 accidents were recorded across the electricity network in June and July alone, leaving households and businesses without power for up to eight to ten hours. He added that dozens of substations experience failures every summer and winter, while hundreds of transformers are damaged each year.
The president also pointed to rapid growth in electricity consumption in several parts of the country. Over the past five years, power demand has more than doubled in Shirin city and the Yangihayot, Yakkasaroy and Ohangaron districts, but local authorities and energy officials failed to anticipate that existing infrastructure would be unable to cope with the increased load.
Mirziyoyev further criticized officials for failing to assess the economic impact of power outages on businesses and said regional administrations lacked accurate data on local electricity demand, resulting in inefficient spending and significant financial losses.
Uzbekistan has been expanding its energy system through large-scale investments in conventional and renewable power generation as electricity demand continues to rise alongside economic growth, industrialization and population increases. At the same time, the government has sought to modernize aging transmission and distribution infrastructure to improve the reliability of energy supplies.
