Afrinpost – Special
The Turkish occupation authorities in the occupied Afrin region, in parallel with the procedures for demographic change, are carrying out the process of administrative and economic linkage of the region to Hatay Governorate on the other side of the border, and in this context came the process of connecting electricity networks in the occupied Afrin region with the Turkish energy network.
According to information circulated by media and news websites, the electricity network that feeds the cities of Afrin and the center of Jenderes district was operated on 11/19/2020, in the presence of Muhammad Saeed Suleiman, Minister of Local Administration and Services in the Syrian Interim Government, Muhammad Sheikh Rashid, Deputy Chairman of the Local Council of Afrin City and representatives of the Syrian-Turkish Electric Energy Company, STE energy.
It is assumed that feeding the cities of Afrin and Jenderes will be the first phase of the project, to be followed in the second phase by feeding the rest of the region, and as for the villages, they will be included in the second phase.
The deputy of the local council in Afrin, Muhammad Sheikh Rashid, spoke about the project and confirmed the efforts to accelerate the connecting of electricity to every house in the so-called “Olive Branch area”, and indicated the value of the consumed energy will be paid and the subscription will be in Turkish lira.
Implementing company and project objective:
The truth of the power supply project is that it is in the context of an integrated plan that aims to connect economic and service and annex the occupied Kurdish region of Afrin to Turkey, which is, in the end, an electricity project with an economic return, and it is just an energy sale that takes advantage of difficult circumstances and the high prices of alternative energy that depend on diesel engines (limited amperes). Its sponsors are expected to achieve large financial returns, and at the same time it is publicized to beautify the image of the occupation, and it also serves the current reality of Afrin, which the majority of its people have been displaced from and have been subjected to the worst case of demographic change.
The northern countryside of Aleppo has witnessed the entry of several investment companies working in the energy field according to contracts with local councils created by the occupation. Including the Turkish electricity company STE energy, which entered Afrin, which is based in Turkey and is managed by Syrian contractors, including Mahmoud Ahmad Kaddour, Muayyad Ali Hamidi and Diaa Mustafa Kaddour.
The occupied areas will be linked to the states (Gaziantep, Kilis, Hatay), where the land will be provided to Turkish companies to set up thermal plants, administrative buildings and others for storage, in addition to basic materials such as copper and aluminum wires and underground cables. Previously the gunmen did theft of copper cables broken and sold through intermediaries to the Turkish electricity company STE energy.
Project stages
The project of extending the electricity network to the occupied Afrin region dates back to mid-December 2018, when a delegation from the Turkish Ministry of Electricity came to Afrin, and a delegation from the Turkish Ministry of Electricity, on January 17, 2019, to discuss the details of the project of importing electricity from Turkey with the local occupation council in the city, and they concluded an agreement in this regard, that the project will be implemented according to three steps: the first includes the installation of the station, the second: erecting towers, extending lines and connecting electricity to the main facilities, and the third connecting electricity to the homes of subscribers, and electricity bills will be collected according to mechanisms determined by the occupation authorities, and thus Afrin’s electrical networks will be cut off from the Syrian networks, which is the same method that was done for communications and the installation of alternative communication towers, working on the project began on 2/5/2020,
In a previous interview with the official of the Monitoring and Media Department of “The Syrian-Turkish Electric Power Company STE, Muhammad Necati, the Turkish electricity delivery project to Afrin is divided into three phases: the first phase is maintenance of“ low voltage ”networks, and the second is the preparation of the ground line meaning “ medium voltage ” and the third phase is to equip the electrical centers, which number in Afrin, is 36.
In a statement published on 4/10/2020 by Shahid website, Necati set 1/8/2020 as a date for the arrival of electricity to Afrin and Jenderes, provided that the next project will reach the towns of Rajo, Maabatli, Sharan and Sheikh Hadid in the second month of next year. He indicated that the source of electricity from Turkey will be from a transformer in the Turkish city of Reyhanli with a capacity of 100 mega, and a transformer in the city of Afrin with a capacity of 50 megabytes, capable of feeding Afrin and its countryside with electricity.
Subscription, payment mechanism and collection of consumption value:
About the payment mechanism, explained that the local council will not work under the billing system, but through a prepaid card, are packaged monthly from dedicated centers scattered in the city. However, the local council did not specify the value of one kilowatt, except that based on the prices of the company that started its work in the Akhtarin and Soran areas in the northern countryside of Aleppo, the price of a kilowatt of electricity reaches 95 qirsh for homes, and 105 qirsh for industrial and commercial facilities.
However, dozens demonstrated in the Azaz area, last November, to protest against the electricity company’s decision to raise the price of a kilowatt from 85 qirsh to 105 qirsh. The company justified the increase in the price of electricity, because the price of diesel fuel on which generators has more than doubled.
The media official at the “Syrian Turkish Electric Energy Company”, Muhammad Necati, told Syria TV website, “People subscribe to the service through customer service centers in Afrin. There will be no electricity bills, rather, the work will be done through the prepaid card mechanism, which enables the citizen to fill it from the centers distributed in the city to draw electricity.
