Iraq minister sacked over power crisis
baghdad — Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi on Sunday sacked his minister of electricity after three weeks of protests against corruption and chronic power cuts in the energy-rich country where successive conflicts have devastated infrastructure.
A statement from Abadi’s office said the premier sacked Qassem Al Fahdawi — whose departure was demanded by protesters — “because of the deterioration in the electricity sector”.
Iraq has been gripped by three weeks of protests over power outages, unemployment, state mismanagement and a lack of clean water.
The demonstrations — during which 14 people were killed — first erupted in southern province of Basra before spreading north including
to Baghdad. Power shortages are chronic in Iraq, a country devastated by a conflicts including the war against the Daesh group before Abadi declared victory over them in December.
Chronic, hours-long electricity cuts are a source of deep discontent among Iraqis, especially during the scorching summer months when
demand for air-conditioning surges as temperatures soar past 50 degrees Celsius.
Since the ouster of Saddam Hussein in 2003, Iraq has allocated some $40 billion in state funds to rebuild its power network and meet the needs of a 38-million-strong population, official figures show.
But much of that has been syphoned off by politicians and businessmen in a country listed by Transparency International as the world’s 12th-most corrupt.
A government official said on Sunday that Abadi had also ordered investigations launched into fake contracts.
Since 2003, more than 5,000 so-called “phantom contracts” have been signed in the public sector, according to Iraq’s parliament.
During the same period, $228 billion dollars have gone up in smoke due to shell companies.
A lawyer, Tareq Al Maamuri, recently lodged a complaint against Fahdawi and his ministry for failing to provide electricity.
He also demanded prosecutions over alleged “embezzlement of public funds”.