Tempers rise after Egyptian power cuts

Since Muslims began their daily dawn-to-dusk fast for the holy month of Ramadan two weeks ago, Egypt has been hit by its worst power outages in decades.

The cuts have struck at the height of summer with daily temperatures hovering around 100 degrees, adding to rising food prices and water shortages.

Newspapers nearly every day run photographs of families huddled in near darkness around candles or oil lamps.

Egyptians are venting their frustration on the government, adding to a list of grievances over what critics argue is its rampant disregard for anything other than catering to the elite and holding on to power.

"They often cut us off 15 or 20 minutes after iftar," said Ali Ibrahim, a 23-year-old university student who lives in one of Cairo's most crowded, low-income neighbourhoods, referring to the sunset breakfast meal.

"That hardly gives us enough time to pray and eat. What makes it worse is that when the power is off, so is the water. So, you have no electricity, you are sweating and you cannot cool off with a shower," he added. "It's too much."

Last week, an angry crowd temporarily blockaded part of a major highway south of Cairo with a barricade of burning tires.

Others have called on the embattled electricity minister to quit while newspaper reports maintain that the outages have led to a spike in crime in parts of the country.

Egyptian officials say the blackouts - that mostly hit during the evenings for up to three hours even in the swankiest of Cairo neighbourhoods - are necessary to protect the national grid from collapse as a result of higher-than-usual consumption caused by an enduring heatwave.

They have sought to reassure the public with a flurry of announcements about bolstering power capacity in coming months, while urging consumers to reduce waste.

Officials have also debunked reports in the country's independent media that the export of natural gas to Israel has left them with insufficient fuel to run their gas-fired power stations.

Asked in a television interview earlier this week how long the outages would last, Mohammed Awad, the head of the Egyptian Electricity Holding Company which controls the country's state-run electricity firms, responded: "As long as people are refusing to cooperate."

The cuts "will continue until God brings down the temperature and people stop switching on all their air conditioners," he said.

The country's estimated generation capacity of 25,000 megawatts has been sorely tested, with consumption hitting over 23,000 megawatts.

Cabinet spokesman Magdy Rady said this week that Egypt would start up a new 375-megawatt power station north of Cairo and hopes to boost output from the Aswan High Dam's hydroelectric turbines by 175 megawatts.

Later in the year, another power station south of Cairo is slated to come online, producing an additional 140 megawatts.