More Power for the Powerful

Wednesday, 1 October, 2003

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Mustafa Basharat

Not everyone has equal access to electricity in Kabul – the amount you get often depends on how much power you wield.

Electricity is routinely diverted from the grid by warlords and armed gangs, as well as anyone with the right friends inside the energy ministry. The ministry has set up a special commission to stop with the thefts, but it has had little success so far.

The state electricity authority is struggling to rebuild worn-out substations, renew circuits and restore consistent supplies. Power plants in western parts of Kabul were destroyed in years of fighting, and electricity lines deteriorated due to lack of maintenance.

The power supply to the capital has been hit by a continuing drought, which has reduced production of hydroelectricity. Over the summer, Kabul was getting power 24 hours a day, but across most of the city the supply is down to 12 or even nine hours, which is switched on at night-time.

Electricity workers find their job is made even harder by armed militias and gangs which simply turn up and demand that supplies be diverted to them or their patrons.

“Up until now, there has been electricity 24 hours a day, but we are now up against the rifle-butts of powerful men,” complained Mohammad Farid, a substation electrician. He would like to see soldiers placed on guard at electricity substations to safeguard supplies.

The deputy minister for water and energy, Mohammad Younus Nawandesh, told IWPR that he has had to visit a number of his staff after they have been hospitalised – and the security and police forces are not doing enough to stop the attacks.

For people living in Kabul, getting wired up to the electricity grid remains a real problem. As Nawandesh told IWPR, the infrastructure still needs a lot of work, “It is very difficult to distribute electricity to all regions of Kabul, because reconstruction is not easy after 20 years of destruction.”

The result is that people with the right connections – often those working for the energy ministry, or with good contacts there – get priority treatment illegally, and simply arrange for a supply line to be laid to their home.

“For three months now I have been trying to get electricity, but I can’t, because I don’t have the connections you get through nepotism,” said Sayed Mustafa, who lives in Kabul’s Khoshal Mena district.

Another resident of the capital told IWPR he was tired of the injustice, “My children ask me why the neighbouring house has electricity but we don’t. I have no answer.”

The deputy energy minister acknowledges there is a problem, “The water and energy ministry is faced with many problems on this issue. In addition to houses that are not connected up to electricity, there are others which are connected because they have done it illegally.”

Nawandesh accepted that the special commission his ministry had established had failed to stamp out the illegal practice.

“In Khair Khana, an area of northern Kabul, more than a hundred cables were connected illegally. When we blocked the connections, armed men cut the cable to the whole area for three days,” he said.

Again, the deputy minister complained that the defence ministry was not doing enough to stop the lawlessness.

When IWPR asked General Labib, political chief for army garrisons at the defencee ministry, about what could be done to assist the energy ministry, he said, "thefts of electricity are a problem which should be solved by the police. And if the police are unable to deal with it, then the [Kabul] garrison can intervene.”

The general’s explanation was that the military’s hands were tied because it needed top-level authorisation in case it got into a fight, “The garrison does not have the right to interfere without a command from the defence minister, the head of the army and the president.”

Mustafa Basharat is an independent journalist in Kabul.