Name the partners before public money goes into Sary-Bulak

Reopening the Sary-Bulak Antimony Works and the Chatkal smelter would be good for Talas, Sary-Bulak and Lower Naryn. The works employed 1,860 people at the end of 2019 and 310 at the end of 2025. Families in the district know what that fall cost them, and nobody should begrudge them the prospect of shifts returning. But a restart paid for partly from the public purse is also a public matter, and the record so far is thinner than the welcome.

Start with the numbers, which do not agree. A Ministry of Natural Resources notice puts the first stage at about US$25 million (IS 125 million) and 600 jobs. The 2027 draft budget and the works' own schedule give IS 168 million (US$20 million) and 420 jobs, of which the state would carry IS 54 million. The Herald does not suggest anyone is hiding anything. The two documents may describe different scopes, or different stages. But a reader cannot tell which, and a Mejlis committee asked to approve a budget line should not have to guess. The timetable is also loose: the Lieutenant Governor's office speaks of mine-side lines by spring and the smelter furnace in the second half of 2027, while the ministry has spoken of December for Sary-Bulak and spring for Chatkal.

Then there are the partners. The state's IS 54 million is committed early; the remaining IS 114 million is assigned to backers whom neither the government nor the Iradi Antimony and Rare Metals Combine has named. The combine's spokesman says they will be named at signing, probably before the end of the year, and that they are buyers and equipment suppliers, not shareholders. The combine is a closed company with no public shareholder register, in which the government holds a minority stake and a veto over major transactions. That is a lot of reliance on assurance. As Damir Alymkulov of Talas State University put it, the risk is lopsided, and it is fair to ask who carries it if world prices fall before the furnaces are lit.

The mercury recovery unit at Chatkal deserves its own care. The ministry says it needs a new operating permit and a public hearing in Sary-Bulak District; the works' filing contains no environmental permit for the site. Councillor Jyparkul Kenjeeva speaks for residents on the river below the plant when she asks that the hearing, and water testing, come before any work begins. Workers also want a wage scale and written contracts. The union committee says it has seen neither.

The Lieutenant Governor's office has said partner contracts will be shown to the Mejlis budget committee before the first payments are made. That is a useful commitment, and the committee takes up the draft later this month. The Herald asks for four things before it does. Publish a single reconciled figure for cost, jobs and dates. Name the partners, or say plainly why they cannot yet be named. Set the date of the Sary-Bulak hearing and publish the permit application and baseline water tests beforehand. And let the committee see the contracts before it votes on the line, not after the money has moved. A restart that can pay for itself, as the Lieutenant Governor says, will lose nothing by being shown to those who are paying for it.