Billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov fought back on Tuesday after Prime Minister Vladimir Putin criticized the owners of power generators for failing to invest in new capacity, saying the prime minister was misinformed.
"Incorrect documents concerning investment programs must have been provided to the prime minister," said Prokhorov, who is accompanying President Dmitry Medvedev on his state visit to France. "The issue is that all companies, without exception, postponed their investment programs. There were objective reasons [for that], including a fall in demand, [and] there were also the subjective ones," he said, Interfax reported.
Last week, Putin lashed out at generating companies and threatened to fine their wealthy owners, including Prokhorov, Vladimir Potanin, Leonid Lebedev and Viktor Vekselberg, for failing to invest in new capacity.
The companies that purchased electricity assets from the dismantled UES signed an agreement with the government that they would use the funds raised through an additional share issue to increase capacity and, in exchange, the government agreed to move toward a system of market-based electricity pricing from the former system of fixed tariffs. But much of the money raised through the additional share issue has gone to other ends.
A total of 66 billion rubles ($2.2 billion) of the 450 billion rubles raised through the additional share issues was used to purchase other noncore assets, Putin said, while another 100 billion rubles is sitting idly in their bank accounts. Only 270 billion rubles has so far been invested in increasing capacity.
But Prokhorov said all changes to the investment programs were approved by the System Operator, the industry regulator, and hinted that the recent resignation of a deputy energy minister may have had a place in the controversy.
"In my opinion, it was all due to the fact that the deputy minister responsible for the energy sector changed. The previous one held long meetings throughout a year and a half, and no decisions were made," he said.
Prokhorov was referring to Vyacheslav Sinyugin, former deputy energy minister who resigned in January, several months after his name appeared on a list of officials who were responsible for the accident at the Sayano-Shushenskaya Hydroelectric Station.
Andrei Shishkin, who previously worked as first vice president of Viktor Vekselberg's Integrated Energy Systems holding, which also came under fire last week for insufficient investment, was appointed deputy energy minister on Jan. 20.
Prokhorov is the only tycoon to have publicly reacted to the rebuke so far.