ARMENIA 2017
Lragir.am
12 April 06
Armenia will benefit from the sale of the fifth generating unit of the
Thermal Power Plant of Hrazdan to Russia. Thus Defense Minister Serge
Sargsyan, who is one of the core players in signing the Contract on
Generating Unit for Compensating for Gas, assessed it on April 11. “It
is quite beneficial, simply it is strange that everyone speaks up
without knowing what the fifth generating unit is.
Figuratively, the fifth generating unit is like a three-storey
building, only the basement of which has been built, and nothing
else,” says the defense minister, advising to check that his
words are true. And those who speak about other options of
reconstructing the generating unit and keeping it to Armenia do not
have reason. Particularly, the minister of defense believes that 150
million is not sufficient to repair the generating unit; moreover,
these funds need to be raised first.
“At least 180 thousand million dollars is required to make a fight
generating unit. And it would repay costs in 10 years at best.
That is, at best in 2017 we would have a company generating income.
And only Nostradamus could predict how much that income would be,
how high the price of gas would be by then, whether there would be
any income at all in 11 or 12 years,” says Serge Sargsyan.
If presently only Nostradamus would be able to tell the future,
the defense minister assures that in the future it will be much
easier to speak about the past. “I think we’ll have time to do this,
because presently there is no point in discussing it, we will offer
more figurative, more forceful arguments on the value of the fifth
generating unit and this step,” states Serge Sargsyan.
“What do we presently need as a people, as a nation: sell something
that does not exist for 250 million dollars or wait until we get some
cents in 2017? After all, can these people who speak so imagine the
consequences of selling gas to people and industry at the foreseen
price?” says the minister of defense.
What we need as a people and a nation is, in fact, an interesting
question to ask. On the other hand, it is interesting to know why the
question of needs of people and the nation is negotiated secretly
from people and the nation until the last moment. Why did nobody
ask people and the nation what they need? And why do they generally
tend to speak in the name of people and nation in Armenia and decide
instead of people and the nation? And do people and the nation want
to sell their own energy sector to another country?
“First of all, not the entire sector. Besides, if we think harder,
we will see that there is almost no difference. And finally, when
politics is mixed with economy, the outcome is neither politics nor
economy. We must see what offers favorable for our economy are made,
and let us not say we decline this offer for it is made by Russia, and
we accept that one, for it is made by Belgium,” says Serge Sargsyan.