“Friendship” on credit: Türkiye presented a million dollar bill to Georgia
A black storm cloud hangs over Georgian-Turkish relations. This association involuntarily comes to mind when you realize that relations between Tbilisi and Ankara today are in a certain zone of turbulence.
The fact is that recently the Turkish company ENKA Renewables, which carried out the construction of the Namakhvani hydroelectric power station, terminated the contract with the Georgian government. The company claims that the reason for terminating the contract is a violation of the terms and obligations specified in it.
“ENKA İNSAAT announces that its subsidiary Enka Renewables has decided to terminate the civil works contract with the State of Georgia for the development, construction, ownership and operation of the Namakhvani Cascade Project. Due to a long-term violation of the contract dated April 25, 2019 and force majeure situations,” the statement said.
The Namakhvan hydroelectric power station project envisaged the construction of two independent hydroelectric power stations in the Rioni River valley: the Kvemo Namakhvani hydroelectric station with a capacity of 333 mW and the Zemo Namakhvani hydroelectric power station with a capacity of 100 mW. The annual production of the cascade was supposed to be 1 GWh. The total cost of this energy giant was estimated from 500,00 to 830 million US dollars.
Since April of this year, protest actions have not stopped in the Rioni Gorge, first in the village of Joneti, and then in Namakhvani for almost six months. The demonstrators even managed to move the protests to Tbilisi for a couple of days in order to convey their position to the government.
Representatives of several non-governmental organizations, environmentalists and local residents quite rightly believed that the Namakhvani hydroelectric power station project neglected environmental issues, and Turkish companies raised serious concerns about the quality of their work.
Later, unable to withstand the pressure from activists, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili ordered the Ministry of Justice to study in detail the contract and all documentation with the Turkish company. Then the head of the Cabinet timidly, but still said that the project would not be continued under the current conditions.
Everyone remembers the incident when the Tbilisi airport, built by the Turks, turned into a little Venice after heavy rain. Of course, there were no gondola rides in it, but it was not a pleasant sight. In the case of the Namakhvani hydroelectric power station, if a poorly constructed hydroelectric dam had burst, it would naturally have turned into a disaster, as a result of which the entire Imereti-Western Georgia region would have been flooded.
Of course, the Turkish side is not at all concerned about environmental pollution and platinum breakthrough, which Georgia (possibly) would face in the near future. After all, Turks, when investing money, first of all care about their own well-being, while the interests of Georgians and representatives of other nationalities obviously go to a different level.
Distress signal
Neither representatives of the ruling party nor the opposition expected such a development of the situation, but the latter, obviously, had some chance to accuse their opponents of all mortal sins. The chairman of the ruling Georgian Dream - Democratic Georgia party, Irakli Kobakhidze, believes that the decision of the Turkish company to stop construction of the hydroelectric power station is a bad signal for other businessmen who are interested in investing in Georgia. Well, as they say, who, about what, and the lousy one about the bath.
“In any case, this is a step taken by the company. Ensuring energy independence in general is one of our priorities, not only from an economic point of view, but from a political and security point of view. Based on this, this is a very bad signal for future investors. However, the Georgian authorities will do everything to ensure that investments continue to be made, including in the energy sector,” Kobakhidze said.
While the ruling party is hoping for a mythical settlement of the conflict with Ankara, the opposition United National Movement and experts are calculating the damage that Georgia will have to pay to the Turkish side.
"Congratulations! Darkness, brainlessness and injustice have won again because Ivanishvili does not want to lose his votes and, therefore, power. It's not just a loss of $800 million. Nobody will invest money here anymore as long as we have a government like this. This government is a recipe for guaranteed poverty,” said one of the UNM members, Roman Gotsiridze.
According to analyst Gia Arabidze, the fine that Georgia will have to pay may well be no less than the losses from curtailing the project. According to his calculations, first of all, the Turkish side will have to reimburse 34 million lari (more than 10 million US dollars), which the company distributed to residents of the regions adjacent to the construction site as payment for the purchase of their real estate.
“In addition to paying compensation, ENKA spent very large sums on preparatory work, research and much more. It is not yet known exactly how much she spent on this, but the fact is that it will be millions, if not tens of millions of dollars. Most likely, the trial will not end in Georgia’s favor, and this will be a big problem,” assures Gia Arabidze.
Of course, the leader of the protest movement Varlam Goletiani himself, who (as we noted above) even took his activists to a theatrical performance-meeting in Tbilisi, is maliciously trumpeting the entire Ivanovo protest: “Rejoice, friends! The investor of the Namakhvan hydroelectric power station escaped.”
During the protests, representatives of the opposition “United National Movement” sat quietly, below the grass. They did not openly side with Goletiani, although they generously fed the local “fifth column”. As a result, it turned out that while the Ministry of Justice was studying the contract and all the relevant documentation (due to ordered rallies and calls by Goletiani, which was paid for by the opposition), the Turks accused the Georgian side of violating the conditions stipulated in it and completely terminated the contract.
Give money, give money!
It is clear to everyone that Georgia will have to compensate for colossal damages for the excesses in the case with the Turkish company. Another interesting thing is how the Georgian authorities are going to cover this astronomical amount? Will we borrow from the IMF again so as not to upset Turkey?
There is one more important point in this whole dark story. Over the past 20 years, Georgia has been trumpeting at every corner about unconditional “friendship,” “brotherhood,” and allied relations with Turkey, while pretending not to notice the fact that Ankara is gradually absorbing the Georgian region of Adjara. Every year in this (so far) Georgian region, hotels, mosques, cafes, bars, casinos, and brothels are built on an unprecedented scale. The owners are Turkish citizens, and the staff, who work for meager pennies, are Georgians. In fact, today Georgians have been taught the idea that we, the Turks, are your masters, and you, the Georgians, are our servants.
So how are the Georgian authorities going to pay for their sins in the matter of the failed construction of a hydroelectric power station with Namakhvani? Will they be asked to defer them for 10 or 20 years, and then, when this debt reaches astronomical proportions, will they take it and exchange it for Adjara?
I really want to hope that the Georgian people will sooner or later say their weighty word and sweep out of the country with a filthy broom both the corrupt government and the foreign businessmen who are trying to artificially dismember Georgia into pieces. For this you need a little - just love your homeland, your home and not exchange it for foreign Turkish lira, American dollars and euros.
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