Absence of electricity in Aleppo s neighborhoods amid Directorate s procrastination

Aleppo – North-Press Agency
Zain al-Abidin Hussein

The people of Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafiyeh neighborhoods in the city of Aleppo suffer from the continuous interruption of the government electricity, since electrical wires in the mentioned neighborhoods were provided by the General Electricity Company in Aleppo, which caused a state of dissatisfaction and discontent among the citizens towards the company's performance in dealing with feeding neighborhood with electricity.

Regarding the suffering of the civilians, Basem Hilal, the owner of a bean store in Sheikh Maqsoud, told North-Press that the electrical wires have been connected in the neighborhood but electricity current is unavailable. He added that he has subscribed to electricity amps and pays 4,800 Syrian pounds per week, which pushed him to raise the prices of the beans he sells, because of the high cost he pays for the owners of private electricity generators.

“If the government electricity returns in an orderly manner, all prices will decrease gradually, which will benefit the citizens in turn," Basem said.

While Hussein Muhammad Waheed, who owns a shop for selling hot drinks, said that he paid 72,000 Syrian pounds in order to install the electricity meter, however, the electricity has yet to come. He pointed out that they have complained to relevant authorities about that. "It's been about a month with no electricity, they told us that the feeder was corrupted, and other times they made arguments," he added.

For his part, Haval Ahmad, an owner of a telecommunications store, said that he paid all the required dues of obtaining clearance and the price of the electrical cables, but the transformer that feeds his neighborhood was burned after three days of its installation. He said that he was forced once again to subscribe to amps and pay money. "If we knew that, we would not have paid all these costs and we would have stayed on using the electricity provided by generators. The owners of generators have taken advantage of power outage and raised the price of the amperes," said Haval.

In this regard, the co-president of the People’s Municipality in Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafiyeh neighborhoods Mahdi Bilal, said to North-Press, that they are coordinating with the electricity company through their relations committee, which intervened until the Syrian government accepted to supply the neighborhood with electricity from Tishreen Dam, noting that they are delaying in carrying out their obligations.

Regarding the weakness of electricity and its continuous interruption, he said: "The total number of available transistors in the neighborhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud, Ashrafiyeh and Bani Zeid, are 106 of which 46 are ready to function and don’t require much effort, but the company only operates 29 transistors, which cause great pressure on the flow of electricity."

Regarding the proposed solutions, he said that they had contacted an international organization via the International Red Cross, which had in turn, accompanied maintenance and installation staffs several times, who pledged that by 2020, they would bring six pre-made transistors to the neighborhoods in order to improve the electricity situation in the area.