Water Institutional Reforms in Kyrgyzstan - The Politics of Water Institutional Reform in Neopatrimonial States - page 108

In acknowledgement of the situation in the agricultural sector (see ch. 5.5.3), farmers have
officially been allowed to pay 30% of the ISF in kind. In fact, however, it is between 50% and
80% that are actually paid in kind. It results not only in limited cash flow to the water agencies,
but it also increases transaction costs and generatess additional costs (storage, transportation,
etc). As the RaiVodKhoz must barter or sell these products, it loses material value and working
time of its employees. The repair and cleaning of channels in exchange for water by farmers,
which also occurs, lacks proficiency needed to make it sustainable.
The government did not take any steps to create the technical preconditions necessary to
implement volumetric ISF: Technical equipment for exact volumetric water measuring is in
existent at most channels. Hence, the amount water released to one farmer cannot be meas
ured, and sometimes not even the amount of water to one FSK or WUA. “The act of asking
(…) to regularly measure individual farm deliveries is not physically possible during an irriga
tion season.” 156 The costs of the necessary technical equipment are very high (they can even
exceed the cost of water supply), thus neither the state nor WUAs so far took action to install
it. In fact, in most WUAs at the moment only a quasi volumetric charging is applied with fees
based on estimations (DFID, Mott MacDonald 2003:11 21; Hassan et al.: 10).
Non payment of the water fees is in most cases not followed by the suspension of water
delivery. This has on the one hand technical reasons: The formerly centralized system of chan
nels often makes it difficult to exclude those farmers from water delivery who did not pay for
it. On the other hand, persons in charge at RaiVodKhozes as well as those at WUAs are reluc
tant to impose sanctions. Although some WUA representatives claim that they would not
deliver water to farmers who did not pay their debts of the previous year, no actual cases of
enforcement could be verified. At one WUA in the case study, people are expected to pay 30%
in advance and the remaining amount later, at the latest at the end of the harvesting period.
However, during observation in the local case study it could be witnessed that farmers receive
their receipt of payment for their water supply without paying in advance. Therefore, one of
the case study's WUAs had between 1,000 and 1,500 som debts remaining from farmers who
did not pay the previous year. Other WUAs are owed even more money by farmers. The
WUAs, in turn owe the money to the RaiVodKhoz . In the Sokuluk case study, many WUAs
have debts of unpaid fees at the RaiVodKhoz , which leads to tensions between them. The Rai
VodKhoz for its part needs the ISF for O&M work. Due to lits ack of financial means, it is not
able to do all the necessary work at the off farm channels, which again leads to water losses
and difficulties in water delivery.
Partly, the WUAs try to work the debts off by hashars , 157 e.g., cleaning services at the main
channels. The WUA lists all the work it has done (in a so called akt protsentovki ) and RaiVodK
hoz gives the WUA water in the monetary value of the work performed. As mentioned above,
the RaiVodKhoz is only allowed to take maximum 30% of WUA payments in kind. In reality,
however, it accepts more. However, the workers often lack the required level of competency
and equipment so that the work does not meet the required needs and therefore leads to fur
ther disagreements between the WUA representatives and the RaiVodKhoz . In December 2003,
the indebtedness of WUAs due to fees not paid to the government was 42 Mio som, which is
equivalent to 1 Mio USD (Alymbaeva 2004: 11). Hence, WUAs do not effectively support the
implementation of ISF.
The non payment of water consumed seems to be an accepted or at least comprehensible
behavior. Consequently, with hardly any sanctions following non payment, few incentives exist
156 Email communication with an international consultant, 10/16/2005.
157 See chapter 5.3.