Clean water for regions. President criticizes officials

"As an analysis shows, many ideas, including promising donor initiatives, remain unfulfilled due to sluggishness of the central bodies and local authorities," the President of Kyrgyzstan Sooronbai Jeenbekov said at Clean Water for Regions Forum.
According to him, the process from a project preparation to ratification of credit and grant agreements in the Parliament often lasts two, or even three years. There are facts when this process lasts four or even five years in some towns.
"Some ministries and departments unreasonably delayed consideration of materials on this issue. In addition, many mayor's offices of cities and towns do not use in timely manner the funds allocated by donors, hiding behind various excuses and trying to use them as a political tool," Sooronbai Jeenbekov stressed.
As an example, he cited the municipalities of Kara-Balta and Tokmak. Despite the fact that projects on clean water were launched in these cities in 2012-2015, they still cannot fully start their work.
"The local authorities of Jalal-Abad unreasonably rejected the decision of the City Council of the last convocation. Should donor funds be taken without making a specific decision on the issue? They delayed the terms of attracting investments for the second stage for eight months. And the mayor's office of Uzgen showed negligence, having not yet used a single som out of € 11 million attracted in 2017," the head of state criticized the local government.
Sooronbai Jeenbekov drew attention to the fact that some ministries and departments formally take the task of attracting investment, and are not looking for ways to accomplish it.
"For example, during my state visit to the People's Republic of China in June 2018, the issue of allocation of $ 100 million as a grant was resolved. But until now, the Ministry of Economy has not taken appropriate actions to raise the funds," he summed up.