Case

AES-Telasi: Power Trip or Power Play? (A)

It would take too long to explain why there was very little electricity and no heat in Tbilisi in the winter months….The reasons were so intertwined with Georgian networks of “patronage,”, black hole, patchwork, and jerry-rig that it was impossible to separate sabotage (a strange and sudden fire at Gardabani, the country’s only thermal power station) from corruption (the bungling and greedy idiots as SakEnergo, the state energy concern) from non-payment (less than 30 percent of the population in Tbilisi paid their electricity bills; Georgia owed Russia millions in electricity back debts) from theft (part of the copper transmission line between Armenia and Georgia was nicked one winter), from black clan economics (someone had the kerosene trade sewn up; it was in someone’s interest to make sure there was no cheap clean alternative) from incompetence (the next winter the pride of Gardabani’s brand new gleaming Unit 10, repaired with sackfuls of German money, broke down because the engineer on duty didn’t know what to do when a red light on the computerized panel started to blink unexpectedly) from infrastructure deterioration (once the whole of eastern Georgia went black as the 500 kW line from the Enguri hydro plant collapsed under the weight of what one commentator described as “pre-election” abuse) from the oft-repeated worn excuse: “The Soviet Union collapsed; there was a civil war.”

—Wendell Steavenson (2002), Stories I Stole (Grove Press, New York NY)

I INTRODUCTION

As Michael Scholey shifted his weight across the canvas bags of carrots that filled the back seat of a battered car that was half way between the Armenian-Georgian border and his destination, Tbilisi (see Exhibit 1), he wondered whether his efforts to bring power to the city of Tbilisi for the millennium celebration would pay off. His uncomfortable journey from Yerevan, which was already three hours over its forecasted five-hour length and still...