Sweat drips from Aqeel Hassan as he tinkers with a labyrinth of wires that connect 270 homes in Baghdad’s sprawling Sadr City. It is a thankless job, but a crucial one amid another scorching heat wave.
His workplace is a humble shack right in front of his home, which comprises a bed, pigeons in a pen to keep him company, and more than 200 color-coded switches, which run to a loud, humming diesel generator.
Hassan is the neighborhood’s generator handyman, whose job involves installing and repairing the wires and switches to make sure his generator keeps running smoothly.
Photo: AFP
The system supplies power to homes on the block when the national grid breaks down.
As summer temperatures sizzle above 50°C, residents are increasingly reliant on his supply.
“I don’t have a start time, a time to clock in. I’m always on, around the clock,” said the 42-year-old, whose arms are covered in tattoos of Shiite sayings and saints.
Photo: AFP
Hassan said that he just fell into the job of maintaining generators after the US invasion in 2003.
Iraq — the second-largest producer in OPEC — buys gas and power from Iran to supply about one-third of its energy sector, which has become dilapidated by decades of conflict, poor maintenance and rampant corruption.
However, last month, Iran decided to cut the power supply to its western neighbor, saying that the Iraqi Ministry of Electricity owed it more than US$6 billion.
That left national electricity provider Wataniya unable to keep up with soaring demand from the country’s 40 million people.
“Our generators are working overtime these days — about 22 hours a day,” Hassan said.
Customers pay him to switch on his generator when the national grid fails.
Although sometimes, he provides electricity for free to the poorest people, he said.
“When electricity comes from the national grid, an alarm sounds and I go switch off the generator, so it can rest,” Hassan added.
His five-year-old son, Muslim, loves when it is time to power down, and rushes to help his father, who lifts him up to reach the switches.
Sadr City is the capital’s most densely populated suburb with more than 1 million low-income households packed next to each other.
Named after the late Shiite scholar Ayatollah Mohammad Sadq al-Sadr, it is clear how revered he is, with posters, banners and framed pictures of his powerful son, Moqtada al-Sadr, adorning every home.
There are 4.5 million privately owned generators nationwide, estimates Harry Istepanian, an independent energy consultant and senior fellow of the Iraq Energy Institute.
Each household spends “on average about US$100 to US$200 per month on electricity, [which] is equivalent to a US$6 billion to US$10 billion business for privately owned generators, but it neither contributes to the country’s economy nor pays taxes,” he said.
“There is no law that regulates the industry, as it is highly connected to the political elites and armed militias. It is part of Iraq’s complicated network of illicit businesses and black economy,” Istepanian added.
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