FILE PHOTO: Tourists wearing hats amid a heatwave, walk in front of the Great Pyramids of Giza, on the outskirts of Cairo, Egypt, July 19, 2023. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany/File Photo
Cairo: Sweltering without air conditioning during the day and plunged into darkness at night, many Egyptians have responded with anger and ridicule to government measures for reducing energy consumption.
Hours-long power cuts across Egypt, several times a day, prompted the directives as high temperatures hit the Mediterranean region this month.
After 11 days of daily blackouts, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouli ordered civil servants last Thursday to work from home once a week, announced scheduled power outages at least through August, and proposed other solutions to Egypt’s energy crisis.
Many Egyptians took to social media to criticise – and poke fun at – what they view as a failure on the government’s part.
“Why do we export gas to Europe while we live in darkness?” wondered Egyptian resident Islam, 36, in comments to AFP.
He gave only his first name.Some were reminded of the last time the Arab world’s most populous nation faced incessant power outages 10 summers ago, helping fuel popular discontent and protests against the short-lived presidency of the late Islamist leader Mohamed Morsi.
He was deposed in July 2013 by then-defence minister Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, whose ensuing administration has invested billions in improving the national power grid.
Until just a few weeks ago, officials were still insisting that Egyptians’ years of suffering from unreliable mains supply were now gone.
The public electricity company, in a statement last week that offered few details, recommended that Egyptians “avoid taking the lift around the start of every hour”, when the power might go out “for no more than an hour”.
The advice triggered mockery on Egyptian social media, where users widely shared satirical posts. — AFP
