System Crisis Is Only Cause of Mingachevir TPP Accident

Baku / 09.07.18 / Turan: The accident at the Mingachevir Thermal Power Plant, which disconnected the entire country from the power supply, revealed not only the problems of the energy system, in which over USD 6 billion was invested in recent years, but a systemic management crisis.

In this case, it's not about the economy and not even about politics - this is a systemic crisis of basic values. After all, when there is a systemic crisis in management, any habitual assessments of efficiency lose meaning, and to search for someone guilty of the consequences of a particular problem or a state of emergency is meaningless.

"The problem is like a disease. In case of incorrect diagnosis, treatment will not bring results and will be harmful," the economist Rovshan Agayev estimated the situation in connection with the incident. Yes, we can take certain superficial measures, but after a while the problem will still be felt - the disease will move to a more acute stage. And if at first glance, the infrastructure crisis may seem to be the work of individuals, the result of someone's irresponsibility, this question has a much more complex and large-scale character.

Management is like a collective game, where each link has its own role and responsibility. For clarity, you can compare it with football. If the team was defeated, of course, it was not without irresponsibility or incompetence of individuals. The role of individual members is assessed individually, but the team is responsible for shaping the strategy and choosing the right players, Agayev said.

Thus, there is a direct link between the level of the management system, political freedoms, freedom of assembly and expression, the existence of a democratic electoral system, accountability of the executive and its activities in the interests of the people, impartiality of the courts, transparency of budget expenditures, economic stability and the state of the energy system.

"Recent events in Mingechevir have become an indicator of years of corruption in state companies," said expert economist Gubad Ibadoglu. According to him, the accident also revealed the problem of poor management, no level of coordination between responsible structures in emergency situations, crisis management and management programs. In view of the above circumstances, the accident at Mingechevir TPP will not be the last of its kind.

From his words, it is corruption that causes former and future accidents. Any sphere governed by corrupt officials is a potential source of explosion. Thus, such emergency situations can be not only in Mingachevir or Ganja, but are expected in all regions of the country and all spheres of state property, as corruption corrodes the country from within. But worst of all, corrupt officials are not in the penalty area, since corruption is systemic and underlies the governance of the country.

While there is no political will in the fight against corruption, and corrupt officials are not punished, similar phenomena will continue. As a way out in order to avoid this in the future, not only in the energy sector, but in other areas, the expert proposes the privatization of large state-owned enterprises on the principle of competition. In general, the country is not immune from the recurrence of such incidents in an authoritarian regime, the monopoly principle of decision-making at all levels of government and limited participation of the public in this process.

It is noteworthy that against the backdrop of these events on July 3 in the second most important city of Azerbaijan, Ganja, shots were fired and the local mayor Elmar Veliyev was seriously wounded. "For many people, this shot was like a balm to the soul. That's why in social networks very many people began to refer to Yunis Safarov as a "popular hero-avenger", an Azerbaijani Robin Hood and condemned tortures against him by the police, "Azerbaijani human rights activist Arif Yunusov wrote in his Facebook profile. This event, and most importantly, the attitude of society towards the incident, was the final chord and a kind of assessment of what is happening. -0-