Iraqi minister of electricity submits resignation amid shortages

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Iraq’s minister of electricity submitted his resignation, a ministry spokesperson confirmed to Rudaw on Tuesday, days after prominent Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr demanded his dismissal, starting a Twitter campaign protesting the power shortage across Iraq.

Majid Mahdi Hantoush, the Minister of Electricity, submitted his resignation on Monday night, the ministry’s spokesperson Ahmed Mousa confirmed to Rudaw. It is unclear when or if the resignation will be approved.

There was a complete shutdown of electricity in the southern Iraqi provinces of Muthanna, Maysan, Dhi Qar and Basra on Tuesday for reasons that are unknown, Iraqi state media (INA) reported.

Sadr on Sunday demanded the minister’s removal from office due to the deteriorating condition of electricity services, attributing it to several causes in a series of tweets, the most prominent of which he said was corruption that leads to the waste of electric power.

After those tweets, a close associate of the cleric, Salih Muhammad al-Iraqi, launched a hashtag on Twitter demanding the minister’s “immediate” resignation.

Iraq has long suffered from chronic outages and electricity shortages in a country where summer temperatures reach over 50 degrees Celsius. Such shortages have in past years been a rallying call for protesters, most notably in the summer of 2018.

Electricity provision is a problem across Iraq, particularly in the summer. Power lines are also frequently subjected to attacks, usually blamed on the Islamic State (ISIS).

Iraq’s Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi last week called on security forces to redouble efforts to protect transmission towers amid an increase in suspected ISIS attacks on the country’s electricity sector.

Mousa in April said Iraq needs 50 million cubic meters of gas per day in winter, and 70 million per day in the summer, to cope with the increase in demand for electricity, according to INA.

He added that Iraq currently imports 20 million cubic meters from Iran, but will return to its original amount of 50 million cubic meters.

Iraq’s Minister of Finance Ali Allawi said on April 12 that Baghdad would “soon” pay debts owed to Tehran for gas and electricity imports following a meeting with Iran’s Minister of Cooperation, Labor and Social Welfare in Tehran.

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