Lack of water and power hampering Basra recovery

People in the southern city of Basra had always been at the bottom of former ruler Saddam Hussein's list when it came to the provision of basic services. "The Southern cities of Basra, Emara and Nasiriyah were referred to by the former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein as the black triangle because of their Shiite opposition majority," Naufal Sayed, a resident of Basra who was buying water in the street told IRIN. He said that there was no piped water to more than half of Basra houses and apartments. "Water cannot be pumped to be used and even if there's water, it's often not clean, so most of the people have to buy water for everyday usage," Sayed added. According to Damien Gugliermina, a communications officer with the UN Children's Agency UNICEF for the Lower South region of Iraq, UNICEF is still working on delivering water tankers that come from Kuwait with around 10,000 litres of drinking water daily to Basra with a special monitoring system to assure that they are not sold by the drivers elsewhere as happened before. But the water being imported by aid agencies only goes so far. "We buy water at least every two days, we can't use tap water even after boiling as is the case in Baghdad," said a woman who was also waiting to buy water. "So we need to buy water even for cooking and washing which cost us a big part of our budget." The war, some local people told IRIN, has been good in that their everyday problems, like lack of potable water, are finally being acknowledged. They live in hope that life will improve. It's a similar story with electricity. Since the war ended in early May, people in Basra say that there were only two weeks when they enjoyed a normal electricity supply. But widespread looting combined with lack of maintenance on a creaking and inefficient local grid means they hardly get nine hours of electricity in every 24 hours. This is at a time when summer temperatures regularly top 50 degrees. "If not less than that sometimes," said Hassan Ali. "Looters steal electricity wires made of copper and smelt it and sell it as copper bars," he said. Things got so bad in August that people in Basra demonstrated on the streets following a further reduction in electricity provision. The reduction was due to a deliberate act of sabotage which affected the entire south of the country according to Coalition Provincial Authority (CPA) sources. There are four power plants currently working and connected to grid but ongoing power cuts are the result of looting and sabotage, the CPA said. Although the CPA has begun to implement security arrangements in conjunction with local people to protect power lines and pipelines, many residents still think that poor security in Basra is preventing the reintroduction of basic services as looters are still relatively free to operate. With electricity and water in short supply the local economy continues to spiral downwards. Hassan Ali works designing and making boats at an industrial park 10 km outside Basra. Production is down 35 to 40 percent on average, some days nothing is made while the power is off. In this uncertain environment his boss has told him he's not sure how long he can continue to pay him. Shops are also closing down in large numbers as people have less money to spend and owners struggle to do business without electricity. Hassan Nawfal is lucky, he transformed his juice shop in the popular Jazair street into a used furniture outlet. "I needed power for the fridges and juice machines, how can I run such a place without power?" he asked IRIN.