Kyrgyzstanis are not ready to give their hard-earned money to pay off external debt of the country. Results of a survey conducted by 24.kg news agency say.
Only 15 percent of the respondents to some extent supported the initiative to open a special account for collection of money from the people to pay off the external debt. At the same time, three-fifths of them specially stated that they liked the idea itself, but they had no financial opportunity to participate in it. The number of those who have already transferred money to the account tends to zero. There are only 13 such people — less than a quarter of the readers who took part in the survey.
The overwhelming majority of the respondents did not take the idea to collect money for payment of the external debt positively. The most popular answer was «let those who took and distributed loans pay», it was chosen by 78 percent of the respondents. Other 6 percent believe that payment of the debt was not their business at all.
The state debt of Kyrgyzstan is approaching $ 5 billion. This is the highest indicator in the entire history of the country — as of August 2020, it reached $ 731.4 per each citizen.
The government plans to open a special account for the voluntary collection of money from the people to pay off the external debt. This is not the first attempt by the authorities to pay off the country’s foreign debt at the expense of ordinary citizens. In 2018, the government headed by Mukhammedkaly Abylgaziev proposed to open a special account to accumulate funds from those wishing to help the state. Most citizens then offered to pay off the state debt at the expense of the property of corrupt officials. Under Almazbek Atambayev, two accounts were opened — in soms and dollars. They were closed in 2012, the money was transferred to the Ministry of Finance.
