Sanaa was brought down yesterday and Aden is suffocating today.. Diesel and energy purchased are crimes against the legitimacy of the Brotherhood

English - Wednesday 15 September 2021 الساعة 08:47 am
Sana'a, NewsYemen, private:

During the past few days, Aden and the liberated southern governorates have been experiencing a severe electricity crisis, which has compounded the suffering of citizens with the summer heat. It has reached the point of suspending studies in the governorates of Aden and Abyan for two weeks.

Although this crisis is not the first, but rather it has been recurring for 6 years, and with each summer the demand for electricity rises beyond the available generation, with the absence of any strategic projects to build power plants that cover this demand, with the exception of an orphan project represented by the "Main Electricity" station in Aden.  With a capacity of 264 megawatts, which is expected to enter service about a year ago.

However, what is new in the current crisis is that it comes in light of the presence of the so-called “Saudi grant” to provide fuel for power stations at a reduced price and not for free, as is depicted. However, the quantities of each batch often run out before the arrival of the next batch, as is currently happening and caused the crisis.  current.

And with the fuel running out, it turns into a dilemma for the government or local authorities in providing emergency quantities, given the high cost of fuel consumed by current power plants, most of which operate on diesel fuel, which is the most expensive type of fuel in the production of electricity compared to gas or coal, which highlights  On one of the biggest disasters of legitimacy and the Muslim Brotherhood, which controls the decision within it.

The cost of diesel fuel consumed by these stations in the liberated governorates amounts to about 48 million dollars per month, as recognized by the Bin Dagher government in late 2017, or about 576 million dollars per year, but the number doubled later, after the global price of a ton recently reached 550 dollars.

Returning to the so-called Saudi grant, the amount being promoted at $442 million is nothing but the difference between the global price for the value of the fuel that power stations need in one year and the local price that Saudi Arabia sells internally, meaning that the electricity bill in the liberated governorates has become more than 700 million.  dollars annually.

This can be measured by the statement made by the Director of Aden Electricity that the daily need for diesel power stations is 1500 tons, meaning that the fuel bill for Aden Electricity alone amounts to 300 million dollars, to produce between 200-230 megawatts only, which means that the cost of producing one megawatt of diesel.  Up to $5,000 per day, while the cost does not exceed $300 for gas fuel.

The disaster does not stop at this point, but is added to the fact that most of the electric generation comes from “purchased power” stations, which means adding another cost, which is the dues of these companies under the contracts concluded with them by the legitimate government or local authorities, the details of which were not disclosed and the size of what they take  These companies, with expectations that they amount to about 100 million dollars per year.

Huge numbers reveal the extent of the tampering that the legitimacy is doing to the state treasury and the size of the depletion of hard currency to produce electricity at the highest cost without covering the needs of the liberated governorates.

 The tragedy is evident that the value of what the government pays to buy diesel and diesel fuel, and what it pays to energy companies in one year, is enough to establish a gas-fired power plant with a capacity of 500 megawatts, and at a fuel cost of only $150,000 per day.

This crime, whose architect was former Prime Minister Ahmed Obaid bin Daghr, loyal to the Brotherhood, and former Minister of Electricity, Brotherhood leader Abdullah al-Akwa, was not a precedent, but almost a duplicate of what happened before the outbreak of the war, in a way that makes it similar to a Brotherhood policy par excellence.

The purchased energy contracts, with which the Brotherhood continued to attack the regime of former President Ali Saleh, and that they represented looting of public money, witnessed great prosperity during the era of the Government of National Accord, which was formed in 2011 and headed by Muhammad Salem Basindawa, and the Ministry of Electricity became part of the Brotherhood’s share through Minister Saleh Sami (who is currently running  In legitimacy, the position of governor of Al-Mahwit governorate, although it is still under the control of the Houthi militia).

Samee, who was described by the late journalist Muhammad al-Absi as a "disaster minister", hastened to double the purchased energy contracts, which did not exceed 200 megawatts during Saleh's era, to 544 megawatts, without tenders, and for companies affiliated with Brotherhood leaders such as Ahmed al-Eisi and Muhammad al-Saadi, all of which run on expensive diesel fuel.

The late journalist Al-Absi was fully dedicated at the time to expose Sami’s corruption and the disaster of contracts that Sami entered into with Brotherhood companies to supply the governorates with electricity through focused press investigations in which he described purchasing energy as “like buying a kilo of sweets for the price of a kilo of gold.”

According to Al-Absi’s investigations, which he published at the time, the purchased energy contracts concluded by Sami doubled the import bill for diesel and diesel fuel - which were subsidized at the time - and exceeded $6 billion in 2013, when the total revenues from the sale of crude oil did not exceed $3.5 billion.

This catastrophe doubled in 2014 when the failure to provide fuel to power stations occurred, the Ministry of Finance did not pay the value of fuel and its derivatives imported from abroad since the beginning of the year, and the electricity debt to the oil company increased, which amounted to about 92 billion riyals (about half a billion dollars at the time), with the arrival of  The budget deficit is at its highest level in the history of Yemen at about 940 billion riyals (approximately $5 billion).

Repercussions prompted the Basindawa government to take its decision to completely lift subsidies on oil derivatives in July 2014, which represented the ideal pretext for the Houthi group to encircle Sanaa with armed sit-ins and storm it and bring down the state on September 21 under the pretext of “dropping the dose and the government.