Turkmenistan cuts off power supply to Afghanistan

Monitoring Desk

MAIMANA: Turkmenistan has cut off power supply to Afghanistan’s border provinces, Da Afghanistan Breshna Shirkat (DABS) announced on Monday.

To the chagrin of residents, power supply to Herat, Faryab, Sar-i-Pul and Jawzjan was severed after Turkmenistan’s demand for doubling the electricity rate was rejected.

Amanullah Ghalib, the head of DABS, told Pajhwok Afghan News Turkmenistan decided to increase the price of power imports to Afghanistan by 100 percent.

However, the demand was declined. In response, the exporter cut off power supply. He hoped a delegation would soon visit Turkmenistan to share Afghanistan’s reservations with them.

Ghulam Sakhi Wakilzada, DABS head for Andkhoy, confirmed the power supply to Faryab, Jawzjan and Sar-i-Pul suspended at around 11:20 pm on Sunday night.

Meanwhile, residents of Faryab accused the unity government of not paying adequate heed to the construction of hydropower dams over the past 17 years.

“Afghanistan’s abundant water resources are flowing into neighbouring countries while the nation has been forced into begging for power,” the inhabitant remarked.

Abdul Rassoul, an official at the Faryab education department, said: “If the whole Afghanistan consumes imported power free of cost, we will still need the facility.”

He asked the government to take steps for creating power dams at the earliest possible to save Afghanistan from dependency and begging.

This comes as the minister of energy and water, during his visit to Faryab, told Pajhwok the price of electricity from Turkmenistan accounted for 1.5 afs for each kilowatt. However, the neighbour is seeking doubling of the price ($0.04 or 4 cents) for each kilowatt.

Turkmenistan stopped electricity exports to Afghanistan after a contract between the neighbours ended on the last day of 2017.