Director general of water department at Gaza municipality Maher Salem on Wednesday said that the lack of electricity has severely affected the municipality’s basic facilities such as water wells and sewage treatment plants.
Salem said in a statement that the municipality is trying to alleviate the crisis by operating these facilities using generators yet the power deficit is still unbridgeable because generators cannot work all day and may require large amounts of fuel as well as regular technical maintenance.
Salem pointed out that the amount of water produced from the municipality’s wells in July 2017 is equal to that produced during the same period in 2016. However due to the power crisis hitting Gaza water is not supplied to citizens’ houses on a regular basis especially to multi-storey houses and those located in high areas.
He affirmed that the municipality is exerting intensive efforts with local and international institutions to find solutions to the power shortage adding that if the situation remains the same the municipality might find itself forced to reduce its services.
The Gaza Strip is experiencing a chronic power crisis that has recently deteriorated after Gaza’s sole power plant was shut down. The plant shutdown has reduced power supply to Gaza residents to only 4 hours of electricity a day compared to the previous schedule of eight consecutive hours of electricity followed by eight-hour blackouts.
