BAGHDAD, July 17 (Xinhua) -- The summer temperature has reached around 50 degrees Celsius in Iraq, while millions of Iraqis are suffering from endemic electricity shortages.
"Although Iraq is an oil-rich country, Iraqi citizens are living in a daily tragedy due to endemic electricity shortages under the scorching summer heat," social activist Ehsan al-Baiyati said, adding that such a situation is one of the main reasons behind people's protests.
Iraq's electricity infrastructure suffered great damage during the Gulf War in 1991. The country has been suffering acute shortage in power supply during the years after U.S.-led invasion in 2003, and the post-war governments failed to rehabilitate electricity production.
Ali al-Aboudi, a member of the parliamentary oil and energy committee, said, "We have 18,000 megawatts of power production, but the actual need for the country is much higher, let alone the fact that more production is needed with the passing of time and the increase of population."
"People are waiting for the few hours of the state's electricity every day, so when they get it, everyone plugs in their air conditioners to get a short time of relax," said Mohammed Salim, a 35 years old electricity employee who works for the electricity ministry to repair the city's dilapidated power grid.
Samir Basim, 34, a resident in Baghdad, complained about his difficult situation, as he lives in a small apartment with his family and suffers from limited power supply that can hardly satisfy his basic need for electricity.
"I hope the electricity crisis will end as soon as possible. But until that happens, the government must intervene to control the electricity prices to protect the vulnerable people," Basim added.
In an attempt to reduce the impact of the crisis, Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi held a meeting with the ministers of electricity and oil to discuss the power supply crisis and ordered to provide fuel for the private generators for free in exchange for lowering the prices of their service to the citizens.
"The electricity crisis has become a nightmare that haunts the Iraqis every summer, and the role of the state in dealing with this issue is still weak," Safaa Hassan, owner of a private generator in western Baghdad, told Xinhua.
Looking at hundreds of wires springing randomly from rusted electricity poles near his generator, Hassan said that he is providing electricity for 15 to 18 hours per day because of the outages of the state's power.
"Owners of private generators are the victims of the electricity crisis," Hassan said. "The continuous power outages make us in direct confrontation with citizens who want more electricity and always demand reducing prices." Enditem
