Power Supply !

Shortage of Electricity in Iraq is the main problem that Iraqi people suffer from .

This problem is really founded in the beginning of eighties of the last century during the Iraqi –Iran war ( 1980-1988) and it became bigger after the invasion of Kuwait having the second gulf war in ( 1990-1991).But things became worst in the third war in 2003.In the past we have the shortage for hours or days then the problem would be solved to have the full power again .

In the nineties we had a schedule by the former regime as a kind of punishment to the south making the uprising against his government in 1991 having power supply at night only and that thing lasted for several years and the generators at that time were so expensive to be used in ordinary houses , shops, restaurants , factories and hotels ,but the exception were those who are so rich or who had involved with the former regime.

After March of 2003 , we hoped that the situation would be better ,but soon we realized that the situation became the worst in all times .The first problem is the lack of planning and the second one which is not less important than the first one is the corruption which snorting the Iraqi budget .

I had a relative who is an employee and a worker in one of the projects to have new supply power station in the south. He said that he is at home since October 2005 while he has his salary coming to his house without going to work or even knows where it is and the same thing for all the workers in the project.

The point is that the manager of the project has the project money in his pocket and of course with few engineers and officials pretending that the project is going on having some obstacles of funds to get. Those salaries are not part of the contract as the ministry of electricity has to pay for them. The project should supply the workers in the project with fees per day as extra work!

So all these fees with this amount of money for unreal equipments on the ground, to have a new power supply station, are going to those greedy selfish people. The disaster is the next step made by the ministry of having limited amperes of power supply in some neighborhoods in Baghdad as a kind of test to be carried out in Baghdad and all Iraq.

Last week, they started with my neighborhood having 20 Amperes in our house (as we have three families) for six hours per day! They said that the house with one family in has tem amperes and for each extra family we add 5 amperes.

I am asking is the ten amperes enough for one family? I just want to ask the expert who suggested that brilliant idea, can we use the iron (which needs 13 amperes) to iron our clothes in this amount of power supply or the iron is not needed in this time.

What about heating and air-conditioning? Nowadays we have cold winter which leads to use heaters to make the houses warm as the kerosene heaters are not healthy (bad products) and we also don’t have this kerosene to fill such kinds of heaters. Also, we need the boiler which at least needs 15 to 20 amperes to start working .Are these things important in our daily life or not?

We know that lights , one fridge , one chest freezer , one T.V set with a decoder would be enough for the ten amperes ,but are these the only things that are necessary in our daily life ? I think this plan is made by one official to have his interests by having a contract to buy cables and contactors with a company which paid lots of money to that one to have their products reach Iraq and to hell all Iraqis .

Of course, all of the Iraqi officials don’t have such a problem as most of them live in the green zone with full time power on and those who are out of it, they have huge generators which can supply at least 1000 amperes for each one! We get rid of Ayhem Al-Samarai, the former minister of electricity, who fled to Washington with one billion in his bank account, to have dozens of Al-Samarai.

Comments

[fred schumacher]

Southwestern Iraq is one of the best places for solar electricity development in the world. A thermo-mechanical system which heats a liquid to drive turbines to generate electricity would create construction jobs, maintenance jobs, and electricity and would outlast the oil under Iraq.

Wars are always about control of resources. In a multi-ethnic country like Iraq, everybody must have a piece of some pie for there to be peace. Shared prosperity is the best antidote to war.

A thermo-mechanical system would be better than solar cells because it is more readily achievable, creates more local jobs and has thermal mass, which would allow for energy storage for electricity production into the evening.

[tamim faris]

dear Sir,do you really havent yet phathomed iraqi people,i feel sorry for your army,and after all your sacrifices,you gave my country as a gift to iran,this is unbeleivable,what is this ?please,you disappointed all the proamerican like me,please do somthing and rescue iraq

[linda spurlock]

You having to live like your are in a poor third world country is wrong. Your country is oil rich with oil going for over hundred dollars a barrel. No wonder you are on the verge of an earth shaking civil war, and our presence and influence is like pouring gas on a fire. There is a saying "the rich get richer and the poor poorer", bet this saying was made about a politican or government official. Again, you have no electricity, water, limited groceries, clothes and we are pouring billions into the "iraqi conflict". When you finally get around to rounding up corrupt government officials, I have a few I'd like to through into the fire!