Vishvas News in its investigation found this claim to be misleading. Water, gas and electricity have not been free in Turkmenistan since 2018. The public has to pay for it.
New Delhi, Vishvas News. A post is going viral on social media, claiming that Turkmenistan is the only country in the world where electricity, gas, and water are free to the public. Vishvas News in its investigation found that this claim is misleading. Water, gas, and electricity have not been free to the public in Turkmenistan since 2018.
A Facebook user named Shahid Khan shared a picture, on which it was written – “Turkmenistan is the only country in the whole world, where people are given water, gas and electricity for free from 1993 till today.”
An archived version of this post can be viewed here.
To begin our investigation, we first did an internet search with keywords. We found a lot of news reports, according to which water, gas, and electricity have not been free in Turkmenistan since the new rule in 2018. And people have to pay for it according to the bill. However, it is true that these features were free till 2018.
According to rferl.org/ news dated 26 September 2018, “Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, the president of crisis-hit Turkmenistan, has signed a decree that will eliminate the last vestiges of a program that has been providing free natural gas, electricity, and water to residents of Turkmenistan since the 1990s.The decree, published by state media on September 26, is due to come into effect from the start of 2019.”
According to a news report published in apnews.com on 26 September 2018 “The President of Turkmenistan has ordered the complete end of free service of natural gas, electricity, and water, which has been enjoyed by the inhabitants of the Central Asian nation for a quarter-century.”
For more confirmation on this matter, we contacted the editor of https://turkmen.news/ Ruslan Myatiev via mail. He wrote in response, “You are right, there is nothing free in Turkmenistan any more. All utilities are paid, including gasoline.”
The viral claim was posted by a Facebook user named Shahid Khan. According to the profile, the user is a resident of Ghaziabad.
Conclusion: Vishvas News in its investigation found this claim to be misleading. Water, gas and electricity have not been free in Turkmenistan since 2018. The public has to pay for it.
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