By Steve Negus and Neil MacDonald
Financial Times, 08 December 2005
For nearly three years, residents of Baghdad have waited for the lights to come back on as proof that the US effort to restore Iraq’s battered infrastructure is bearing fruit. They may have a long time to wait.
With over half of the $21bn allocated for rebuilding Iraq spent, the capital only enjoys four to five hours of electricity a day - the result, US officials say, of insurgent attacks on the power lines north of Baghdad.
However, US officials say they never intended entirely to rebuild a system that had suffered from decades of neglect under Saddam Hussein, and that Iraqis may have to to wait for a new wave of reconstruction funded by other donors and their own government’s revenues to see the supply of power meet demand.
Iraq’s “electricity problem is $20bn dollars”, and the US is spending $4bn, said US Brigadier General William McCoy, head of the Army Corps of Engineers for the Gulf region. The Americans’ immediate goal is to provide 10-12 hours of power a day nationwide, he said.
For much of the country, this is more than before the invasion. Former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein starved the provinces to provide power to his capital and Baghdadis and state industries enjoyed near-continuous power supply, US officials say.
Iraq currently has 7200 MW worth of power generation capacity, General McCoy said, of which 3500 MW was built or restored by the United States. But not all of it can be used, thanks to maintenance, fuel shortages, and other problems.
Since the summer of 2003, electricity generation has usually fluctuated between 3500 MW and 4500 MW a month, less than the pre-war average. With demand rising as Iraqis buy appliances, the number of hours per day available has steadily decreased, even with some additions to generation capacity.
Several power plants have come on line in recent months, and by the end of this month the system should provide 6000 MW in sustainable power, General McCoy said. That production target had earlier been set for July 2004.
However, the capital’s supply is particularly vulnerable to attacks by insurgents. Although US and Iraqi government efforts managed to get Baghdad some 11-12 hours worth of supply in mid-October, attacks on the transmission lines north of town since then have brought that total down to only four to five hours a day, said Daniel Speckhard, director of the Iraq Reconstruction Management Office (IRMO).
Antiquated urban infrastructure also causes problems. The southern city of Basra cannot always make use of its generating capacity, because sending extra power into the grid sometimes blows the distribution system, say British officers in the city. Mr Speckhard said that US funders will concentrate increasingly on the distribution and transmission systems in the remaining period of US-led reconstruction.
The United States foresees winding down its postwar reconstruction campaign next year. Of the $21bn budgeted for reconstruction, some $17.5bn has been contracted of which $12bn has been paid for work completed, IRMO officials say.
Mr Speckhard said that primary responsibility for reconstruction would pass in the coming months to the Iraqi government, supported by multilateral institutions such as the World Bank and other countries’ aid programs.
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Citation: By Steve Negus and Neil MacDonald. "Baghdad power supply falls short of pre-war levels," Financial Times, 08 December 2005.
Original URL: http://news.ft.com/cms/s/903cebc2-6804-11da-bfce-0000779e2340,ft_acl=,s01=1.html
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