Kabul factories received no electricity in past 3-week: Sapi

KABUL (Pajhwok): The Afghanistan Industrialists Association (AIA) says most factories have not received electricity in the past 21 days but the Da Afghanistan Breshna Shirkat (DABS) said electricity to factories will be restored soon.

AIA Head Abdul Jabbar Sapi in Pajhwok’s Tanazur twitter space debate said on Saturday night that no factor in Kabul received electricity in the past 21 days.

“Factories are shutting down and lost everything,” he said.

He said: “Industry played vital role in the economic development of the country adding that currently 150MW electricity was available in the country but industrial parks are deprived from the available electricity.”

“The supply of electricity to industrial parks was most important because many people work in these factories and it is the matter of Afghanistan’s exports,” he added.

“In case of non-availability of imported electricity, we reached agreement with the DABS that industrial parks will get up to 12 hours electricity from Mahipar and Naghlo Dams but besides the availability of electricity from local resources industries are not provided with electricity,” he added.

Safiullah Ahmadzai, the DABS operational director, acknowledged the issue of electricity supply to industries and said: “Factories in Jalalabad and Kabul may have stopped functioning because they needed 150MW electricity which is not available to them at this stage due to the shortage. Efforts are on to resolve the issue in coming days.”

He said Uzbekistan assured to connect 30MW more electricity after which industrial parks would be provided 10 hours electricity in two shifts.

It is worth mentioning that currently Uzbekistan cut off electricity supply due to technical issues, but the neighour country still supplied 130MW electricity.