Parliament to question Minister of Electricity next week

on several files preceded by the bad service of the electric power stations, indicating it has prepared 30 questions for the Minister.

Iraq suffer from a shortage of electricity since the beginning of 1990, as electricity rationing hours have increased after 2003, in Baghdad and the provinces, because of the old stations in addition to sabotage over the past years.

Successive governments have failed after 2003 to make any significant improvement of electricity, despite the availability of large financial allocations and the openness of Iraq to the global markets.

“We will question the Minister of Electricity, Karim Aftan next week according to the request we made last year,” A member of the parliamentary oil and energy Commission, Uday Awad told “Shafaq News”.

He explained that “the delay in questioning Minister of Electricity was due to the procrastination of the Parliament Speaker and some political blocs”.

The Ministry says that the production of electricity energy reached about 10 thousand MW, while Iraq needs according to their estimates to about 20 thousand megawatts of energy to reach self-sufficiency.

This percentage is the highest that Iraq reaches.

Ministry of Electricity confirmed in more than one occasion that will achieve energy self-sufficiency by end of 2013.

As the Deputy Prime Minister for Energy Affairs, Hussain al-Shahristani said earlier that Iraq will begin exporting electric power soon after reaching self-sufficiency stage.

However, this statement faced a wave of criticism.

The rates of power cut hour’s increases across the Iraqi provinces in the summer as the Iraqis resort to alternatives to save energy that they have adopted for more than 15 years.