Hundreds of state energy projects in Turkey failed to start

Duvar English

653 electricity projects that were part of an investment program failed to start in 2018, according to an inspection report of the Turkish Electricity Transmission Corporation (TEİAS) that was prepared by Turkey's Court of Accounts. 

Apart from the stalled projects, 59 out of 100 separate energy investment projects were finished after their deadline, resulting in a lack of the relevant authorities' ability to obtain data regarding the output of these projects. 

“Transmission limitations will increase, and due to these limitations it will be dangerous for the system. Regional delays will arise, and problems even more serious than the electric system delay that occurred on May 31, 2015 that affected the entire country will occur. In the near future, power plants that are to be completed will not be able to be operated, or the necessity of increasing the load of the available plants will result in danger to the security of the transmission system,” the report said.

“Due to the currency disparity [between the lira and hard currencies] TEİAŞ' losses are approaching one billion Turkish lira. 8,539,000 lira of short term borrowing expenditures all went to paying off interest. Out of 925,732,000 lira of long term borrowing expenditures, 5,496,000 lira went to interest expenses while the remainder was due to the currency disparity,” said main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) deputy Deniz Yavuzyılmaz, who added that people in Turkey were paying the price for the firms' losses.