The Energy Authority in Gaza said on Monday that the taxes imposed by the Palestinian Authority (PA) government on the fuel sold to the Gaza power station led to tripling its prices describing the resultant prices as unprecedented.
The Energy Authority affirmed that the statements voiced by Fuad al-Shawbaki the Director General of the PA Petroleum Authority are fallacies and evasion of responsibility.
Shawbaki said in press statements “The Gaza Energy Authority asked us to sell with the same prices of fuel as those of the Qatari and Turkish grants forgetting that we are an occupied country and that we suffer from financial crises.”
The Gaza Energy Authority asked the PA government on Sunday to exempt the fuel sold to the power station in Gaza from taxes just like the case with the Qatari and Turkish grants.
Fathi Sheikh Khalil deputy head of the Energy Authority said during a press conference that the electricity crisis could surface anew in Gaza due to the depletion of the fuel provided by the grant unless the fuel is exempted from the taxes imposed by the PA government.
The Gaza Strip suffers from an electricity crisis that has been rolling for more than ten years.
Sheikh Khalil emphasized that given the economic circumstances of the Gaza Strip the Energy Authority will not be able to buy fuel with any tax rate adding that buying fuel with taxes imposed on it will not end the crisis but only delay it.
Sheikh Khalil pointed out that the Gaza Energy Authority is in need for fuel by the end of this week in order for the power station to continue to work with the same capacity and to maintain the current electricity schedule.
He affirmed that the Palestinian factions had adopted an 8-point proposal presented by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine that includes a roadmap to solve the electricity crisis pointing out that the PA government’s premier Rami Hamdallah accepted all the terms mentioned and agreed to deduct the blue tax from the prices of the fuel sold to Gaza.
The World Bank issued a report in September 2016 dealing with statistical data collected in 2014 to reveal the falseness of the PA statements about supporting Gaza with one billion shekels a year. The report underlined that the PA paid only 374 million shekels of the total funds required to support Gaza’s electricity.
The electricity needs of the Gaza Strip amounted to about 600 MWs in 2016 while the only amount provided in case all three main sources are available (Israeli Egyptian and power station( is 270 MWs.
