Shafaq News- Baghdad
Iraq's deepening electricity crisis led to freshprotests in several provinces on Sunday as Electricity Minister Ali SaadiWaheeb sought to appear before parliament to publicly explain the country'sworsening power shortages.
In a statement, the Electricity Ministry said theminister had requested a parliamentary session to present a comprehensiveassessment of the national grid, outline the challenges facing the sector, andanswer lawmakers' questions. The ministry described the move as the first timean Iraqi electricity minister has voluntarily asked to address parliamentwithout a formal summons.
Demonstrations spread across al-Muthanna andKirkuk, where residents protested prolonged power outages amid soaring summertemperatures.
In al-Muthanna’s Samawah district, dozens ofdemonstrators gathered in the city center, blaming local authorities for“failing to secure the province's electricity allocation” and demandingpressure on Baghdad to improve supplies.
In Kirkuk, protesters blocked a main road afterdeteriorating electricity supplies and the shutdown of a neighborhoodgenerator. The situation has been compounded by a fuel shortage affectingprivate generators. Thamer Al-Ishaqi, head of Kirkuk's Generator OwnersAssociation, told Shafaq News that 138 of the province's roughly 1,005 privategenerators had stopped operating after running out of kerosene.
He said current fuel allocations cover only about240 hours of operation per month, leaving a deficit of around 70 hours. As aresult, generator owners have been forced to buy fuel on the commercial market,where the price of a 200-liter barrel has climbed from 160,000 Iraqi dinars(about $104) to 230,000 dinars (about $150) in just two days and could risefurther.
Al-Ishaqi attributed the shortage to disruptions indomestic fuel supplies and the suspension of deliveries from productionfacilities in Erbil, Al-Sulaymaniyah and Baghdad.
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Earlier, similar demonstrations erupted in Dhi Qarand Wasit, where protesters blocked roads and demanded improved electricitysupplies. In Wasit, clashes left more than 50 police officers injured and morethan 10 people detained.
According to the Electricity Ministry, summerdemand has exceeded 60,000 megawatts, while available generation remains nearly40,000 megawatts short. The ministry attributed the deficit to illegal gridconnections and reduced natural gas supplies following the regional conflictand disruptions linked to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
Power cuts have long been one of Iraq's mostpersistent public grievances, with temperatures frequently exceeding 50°Cduring the summer months and millions of households relying on privategenerators to compensate for limited state electricity.
: Beyond 50°C: How decades of conflict are heating Iraq
