Wasit, Jan. 13 (AKnews) – The chairman of Wasit council’s media department said on Wednesday that the council has called on its citizens not to pay their electricity bills which have been deemed too high returned to the Ministry of Electricity for reconsideration.
The economic commission in the federal Council of Ministers directed the ministry of electricity last year to gradually increase the cost of consumer electricity in order to encourage the Iraqi public to be more responsible in their domestic consumption.
The head of Wasit’s media department, Al-Dahabi told AKnews that the new prices were not commensurate with the income of most households in the province and so the recently distributed bills have been returned to the ministry unpaid.
Dahabi said that the council had received a number of complaints from electricity consumers as the domestic rates had doubled, and were not considered to correspond to the poor levels of service that Wasit citizens receive.
“The council will discuss this issue during its next meeting,” he said, then coordinate with the Ministry of Electricity to come up with a pricing formula “that doesn’t overburden the Iraqi citizen.”
The Iraqi government is attempting to address the acute shortage of electricity in the country after power stations and distribution lines were severely damaged during the Iraqi war, and subsequently prone to acts of sabotage by insurgent groups.
Iraq’s available capacity is about 9,000 megawatts of energy whereas domestic demand reaches around 14,000 megawatts during the summer months when temperatures exceed 50 degrees Celsius in many areas.
Iraq plans to increase the country’s capacity to 27,000 megawatts over the next four years requiring an annual investment of between $3bn to $4bn.
Reported by Nabil al-Shayeb
Rn/Ka/AKnes
http://www.aknews.com/en/aknews/2/210142/?AKmobile=true
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