The state company generating power Azerenerji still has problems with payment of salaries.
One of the company’s employees in Baku told Turan that he was not paid since August. Other employees of the company’s divisions in the region told Turan that usually the payment was transferred to their account by the first day of the month, but after the manat devaluation since May money was transferred to their account at the end of the month. Now they are not paid at all.
The state company was unavailable for comments.
Despite the billions of investments Azerenerji has showed itself as inefficient company. Its debt to the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) for the fuel during the past three years has reached half a billion manat. In order to support the company, in July the Cabinet of Ministers as forced to make a decision to postpone payment of debts by the regional distribution power networks of Azerenerji, ownership of which was transferred to the power distribution company Azerishig in mid-summer, till December 31, 2020.
In June 2015 Fitch Ratings agency reported that devaluation of Azerbaijan manat by 34% has weakened creditability of Azerenerji, because of lack of correspondence between debt and income of the company. At the end of 2014 almost 80% debt of the company was in foreign currency, while the entire earning was in national currency. The company’s assets, which have significant amortization and demand funding of about 2 billion AZN between 2015 and 2017, are problematic as well. In the coming three months the company’s income will drop by almost twice from 230 billion AZN in 2011-2014 to 125 million AZN in 2015-2018.
