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Egypt: Repeated Power Outages
By African Bulletin on August 24, 2010
Power outages are increasing in Egypt since the beginning of Ramadan. They reached enough frequency to drive gripe the Egyptians in anger and cause a clash between the Ministers of Electricity and Petroleum.
With the heat wave – Air conditioners, fans, refrigerators operate at full capacity – added to the exceptional Ramadan energy consumption, has plagued the country of the pharaohs in the dark. Power plants just could no longer to keep the pace.
To prevent overheating of the network grid, the Ministry of Electricity has to proceed to outages affecting successively all the neighbourhoods, towns and villages of Egypt. The electricity minister who is the object of all the curses defends himself by accusing the Minister of oil, because of shortages in gas and oil replenishment. The oil minister retorts that previous bills amounting to three billion Euros must first be paid.
The clash between the two departments was strong enough, necessitating President Mubarak to personally intervene to bring back to the rightful path, from one side the electrician to pay, and from the other side the oil supplier to deliver oil and gas.
This situation has given the opportunity for the opposition to criticise the government by saying the gas export abroad is behind the power outages.
To prevent overheating of the network grid, the Ministry of Electricity has to proceed to outages affecting successively all the neighbourhoods, towns and villages of Egypt. The electricity minister who is the object of all the curses defends himself by accusing the Minister of oil, because of shortages in gas and oil replenishment. The oil minister retorts that previous bills amounting to three billion Euros must first be paid.
The clash between the two departments was strong enough, necessitating President Mubarak to personally intervene to bring back to the rightful path, from one side the electrician to pay, and from the other side the oil supplier to deliver oil and gas.
This situation has given the opportunity for the opposition to criticise the government by saying the gas export abroad is behind the power outages.