Somaliland:Hargeisa Hit by Blackouts amid Power shortages

By Goth Mohamed Goth

Hargeisa-The Deputy Managing Director of the state owned Hargeisa power supply Agency Mr. Abdullah Yusuf Elmi has apologized to residents of the capital city for latest blackout which has affected much of the city residents who depended on the state owned power supplier because of it charges less rates compared to private power supplies who charge exorbitant $1 per kilowatts one of the highest rate in the world.

The Deputy MD of the State owned power supply agency blamed local faults for the latest outage while speaking to the media, this is what he had to say, “The power outage was caused by one of the main generators malfunctioned and ceased operating that when we were forced to cut power to some residential areas of the city but the other remaining two generators couldn’t cope with the heavy so we resorted to switching them off altogether to avoid another malfunction of the remaining generators and that the most of the city will remain without power until tomorrow.

“We have deployed all our resources and our staff are currently working on a 24 hour shifts , I do hope this situation will be resolved soon,” he said.

The power supply agency official, however, claimed that apart from the latest power outages all is well. They are able to meet most of the city’s power needs.

Unscheduled power cuts in local areas have not only irked city people but at the same time have also resulted in acute water shortage in many parts of the city. Several localities of the capital city including the city center have in the past witnessed frequent power cuts lasting several hours due to technical snags in power transformers and snapping of cables.

Mr. Abdi saleh who runs a small business told us, “The power situation in Hargeisa seems to go from bad to worse each time with prolonged power cuts, low voltage accompanied with frequent fluctuations the current government must act urgently or else we shall go bust.

There has to be some way of improving the country’s power supply as outages become common and the fact citizens continue to grapple with severe water crisis, with supply plunging to an all-time low of the usual volume in many areas.

Somalilandpress.com