Profit and Loss of Independence

It has been 28 years since Azerbaijan regained its independence, and this is a third of the average life expectancy of Azerbaijanis. And while on January 1, 1992, the country's population was 7 million 344 thousand 100 people, then on January 1, 2019 its number reached 9 million 981 thousand 500 people. That is, since then, the country's population has grown by 2 million 564 thousand 250 people. This means that today at least 2.5 million children and young people born in the period of independence live in Azerbaijan.

Since the restoration of sovereignty, the average annual population growth was 94,972 people. During the period under review, 3 million 960 thousand 123 people were born (146 thousand 671 people a year on average), and 1 million 440 thousand 532 people died (51 thousand 477 people a year on average). In 1992, 1993 and 1994, as well as after 2005, the number of deaths was higher than the average every year.

The increase in the number of deaths in the first years of independence, of course, is associated with those who died in the war for Karabakh. According to official figures, in those years only 11,557 soldiers were killed in military clashes. Although one of the causes of rising deaths since 2005 is old age, others are early illnesses, poor diagnosis, ineffective treatment, and poor-quality medications. The presence of cases of untimely detection of diseases, irregular vaccinations and other preventive medical procedures in the health care system not secured by state insurance sets precedents for sudden and premature deaths.

Dirty air and water and poor-quality food products contribute to a decrease in life expectancy. It should be noted with regret that over 28 years, Azerbaijan"s health care has not turned into a reliable structure that can ensure the health of its citizens.

According to official data, hundreds of thousands of patients are sent annually from Azerbaijan to Iran for examination and treatment. In addition, the middle-income people take their patients to Georgia, Russia, Turkey, Belarus, and Ukraine, and the rich prefer Germany and the USA. The reason for this lies in their dissatisfaction with the quality of the examination and treatment carried out in Azerbaijan. And this is not surprising, since even with an average level of personnel potential over the past 28 years, the necessary technical, financial and managerial support for the development of health care has not been achieved.

Although today there are about 40 universities, institutes and branches in Azerbaijan, educational institutions that meet international standards have not been formed over the years of independence. It is interesting that while in the rating of Higher Education (THE) in the first 1,000 universities of the world there were 15 universities from Russia, 11 from Turkey, 1 each from Ukraine, Belarus and Georgia, Azerbaijani universities were not even included in this list. And this was despite the fact that in 2006-2015 11.8 billion manat was allocated from the state budget for the needs of the education sector. However, this was against the background of 44.6 billion manat allocated for construction, 11.1 billion manat - for social protection and social security in general, 10.1 billion manat - for the maintenance of the state administration apparatus, and 4.7 billion manat - for health care. Thus, in the period 2006-2015, on average, 1.2 billion manat was allocated for education from the state budget, 4.5 billion manat for construction, 1.1 billion manat for social protection and social security in general, and 1 billion manat for maintaining the state administration apparatus, and about 500 million manat for public health. Moreover, this is not all the capital invested in the listed sectors, besides them there are still billions of manat sent to them from private and personal sources.

It is even visually seen that in 2006-2015, only AZN 7 billion was spent on construction more than education, healthcare, maintenance of the state apparatus, administration, science, social protection and social security. As you can see, over the past decade, the construction sector has benefited the most from oil revenues, plundered, inflated, and not creating value-added projects, mainly for non-profit purposes.

In general, until this year, Azerbaijan"s revenues from oil exports amounted to $ 148.2 billion, assets of the State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan - $ 38.5 billion, and transfers to the state budget from SOFAZ - 93 billion manat, which was mainly spent on inflated infrastructure projects. However, despite this, the continuous rains that covered Baku in 2017 for several hours made impassable not only the streets, but also the quarters in some cities of the city. Over 28 years of independence, Azerbaijan has become known in the world market for its oil, and in the regional market for its tomatoes and other vegetable products. In 2019, Azerbaijan ranked 84th among 129 countries in the Global Innovation Index.

For 28 years now, Azerbaijan has been living with longing for Karabakh, celebrates Independence Day with the aspirations for high-quality education, guaranteed health care, well-being and a safe life. However, the ordinary population, suffering from the "additional costs" of the independence period - bribery and corruption, mass unemployment, high cost, and extreme stratification, even after 28 years is deprived of access to the results of socio-economic development, social security, quality education, health insurance and a safe future.

Those in power do not care at all. Because due to the fact that for 28 years now, "independence costs" have been paid by taxing ordinary citizens and oil revenues, poverty in the country is growing steadily. According to the World Bank's South Caucasus in Motion report published in January 2019 (1), on average 24% of Azerbaijani citizens, 16% of Baku residents and 30% of the population of the regions are below the poverty line.