President of the Union of Entrepreneurs Andrey Bunich is confident

The Russian authorities intend to get rid of a controlling stake in RusHydro. According to the President of the Union of Entrepreneurs Andrei Bunich, the decision is shocking and will not change the situation for the better.

The state may give up control over hydropower.

The head of the Ministry of Energy, Sergei Shmatko, said today that the issue of exiting the controlling stake in the RusHydro company is being considered. Now in the largest Russian company the state owns almost 58% of the securities.

Live on Kommersant FM, President of the Union of Entrepreneurs and Tenants of Russia Andrei Bunich spoke with Roman Karlov about the reasons for this decision of the authorities.

– In your opinion, what are the reasons for this government decision?

–– This is a shocking decision, of course. This is not the first in the field of electric power industry, since it was recently announced that network companies should also be privatized - IDGC and FSK. This is in complete contradiction with the line that the state itself has been pursuing for a long time. It was constantly said that as a result of the Chubais electricity reform there were negative aspects, because generation fell into the hands of private investors who did not invest money there, but, on the contrary, raised prices.

But the only thing that the state had left was hydroelectric power generation, nuclear power plants and grid companies. Now it’s the other way around: grid companies also need to be sold, hydro generation needs to be sold. Only nuclear power plants remain. All that remains is to declare privatization on them and that’s it. It turns out on the contrary, even more is being done than was done during the time of Chubais. That is, it is much, much ahead of even the most daring ideas of Anatoly Borisovich.

–– Some experts believe that the idea of reducing the state stake to a blocking stake could have been influenced by an assessment of the risk of an accident at the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station. Do you somehow connect these reasons?

– I just can’t understand how a transfer to a private owner can change the situation for the better? After all, our state, on the contrary, declares, if you pay attention, that it is private owners who are to blame for everything. Something happened at Domodedovo - investors or private owners are to blame, somewhere else something burned or exploded - again private owners are to blame.

And the state itself immediately gives strategic industries into the hands of unknown people, and it is obvious that the consequence will be an even greater increase in prices for this electric power industry.

How can the price decrease if those who bought the generation recently protested: “We refuse, we will withdraw from investments in Russia if we are not allowed to raise prices.” These are the ones who bought the generation. Moreover, it will be over networks. Especially regarding hydrogeneration. Because in terms of hydrogeneration, it is the cheapest in the country as a whole. And this difference, since energy does not reach the market, is now received by the state - between cheap hydro generation and the overall cost of electricity.

And thus, this will be transferred to someone who, naturally, will raise the price or extract some kind of excess income, and obviously will not build hydroelectric power plants, because this is a very long payback period for these objects. Hydroelectric power plants are even more problematic to build than thermal power plants, and so on. Then they don’t even build thermal power plants, which are according to the Chubais reform. He said that everything would be completed by private owners. They will do generation and so on. And even more so, who will build hydroelectric power plants there?

Therefore, in my opinion, this is simply a line towards a total sale of everything, for some reason until the 12th year. As quickly as possible for the reason: the first is, I think, the bankruptcy of the government as a whole, because its formal excuse “budget deficit” no longer works, since oil prices are now high. And all this was done supposedly there for some mythical shortage. Therefore, it is clear that there are some other reasons, that is, it is clear that the Russian economy can no longer withstand much larger debts, it is inefficient, and therefore it is bankrupt.

In fact, after the 12th year it will be obvious. And there are some obligations, I think, with foreign creditors, including at the government level, to sell everything that is left as quickly as possible and somehow survive for another year. I think this is very dangerous and those people who are trying to do all this are clearly not confident in their political future. This is also obvious.

The state will implement Chubais’s most daring ideas