Kabul faces Blackout as Power Supply to Afghan cities stopped

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The electricity supply from Uzbekistan, to several Afghan provinces and the capital city Kabul has been stopped due to technical problems, said Afghanistan's state power company, Da Afghanistan Breshna Sherkat / DABS.

This comes just a few days after reports said that Afghanistan's electricity body is set to sell the estates of its debtors in a bid to pay nearly USD 62 million worth of power bills to central Asian countries. The technical issues began in the Afghan province of Baghlan. A statement said, “The technical staff is working to resolve this issue as soon as possible.”

This development comes as news reports say that Kabul could dive into darkness due to non-payment of dues of Central Asian electricity suppliers by new Taliban rulers.

Electricity imports from neighbouring countries like Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan account for 80% of the country's power consumption.

After Taliban took over Kabul in August, and the Afghan government fell, the outfit took power over state energy utility, inheriting debts, but have failed to pay off creditors so far.

Earlier this month, the former head of DABS, Daud Noorzai, said that supplies of electricity to the Afghan capital province of Kabul could be cut off by winter as Taliban didn’t pay the bills to Central Asian energy suppliers.

Meanwhile, Safiullah Ahamdzai, acting head of DABAS, said they will implement the plan and will pay off all debts to prevent cutting electricity by exporting countries.