Goran Baban - Kirkuk

Owners of private electric generators are not satisfied with the price increase and vow to continue their protests after the Feat of the Sacrifice holiday. Recently, there has been significant decrease in electricity feed from the national grid due to several issues, which the deputy governor says won’t be fixed soon.

Kirkuk Province Administration has decided to raise the price for electricity feed from private generators after the owners of such generators threatened to cut the feed during the holidays.

Twana Muhammad, one of the generator owners, told KirkukNow: “Our problem is not resolved: we haven’t asked for an increase in prices, but for the feed from the national greed to be increased, because our generators can’t take 15 hours of work per day.”

In early July, Kirkuk Administration that the government can provide only 10 to 14 hours of electricity per day. Yet for a week now, the national grid provides only 5 to 10 hours a day.

The owners of generators recently threatened to cut their feed entirely in protest, but have delayed that. Twana said: “After the [Feast of the Sacrifice] holiday, all the generators will be shut down after 12 PM if our demands are not met.”

Ali Hammadi, deputy governor of Kirkuk, says that the national electricity issue needs time to be fixed, and “the lack of electricity in Kirkuk and the rest of Iraq as well will remain for some time.”

He added that Kirkuk needs a current of 1,100 megawatts, but the national grid provides only 650 megawatts.

Ali Hammdadi says electricity feed from Baghdad for the provinces of Nineveh and Salahuddin goes through Kirkuk because there are no other connections. “Mosul is planning to get 400 megawatts from the Kurdistan Region, and that will make them less dependent on the feed from Baghdad, so Kirkuk can get a bigger share of the feed.”

“The only solution for the electricity inadequacy now is new electric plants, otherwise the problem will not be solved soon,” said the deputy governor.