JEDDAH, 7 September 2005 — Power outages have become an everyday problem now for residents of Jeddah, and Saudi Electricity Co. subscribers who are facing a scorching summer season demand a solution — and soon.

Saudis and expatriates alike have expressed their outrage over the company’s apparent apathy toward the problem and said they don’t want apologies. “We want action to stop the problem at the earliest as it is affecting our families and businesses,” said one consumer.

Recurrent outages throughout the city have inconvenienced individuals and families, forcing them to leave their houses to seek furnished apartments with power. Businessmen, particularly food suppliers, have suffered heavy losses.

Despite protests of residents, SEC hasn’t fixed the problem. Many schools and other institutions have complained about long outages during working hours, forcing them either to close early or work in sweltering conditions.

Lawyer Ashraf Siraj said he was filing a lawsuit against SEC on behalf of a businessman who suffered SR4 million loss as a result of power cuts. He said the businessman told him that the operating time of his factory had been reduced from 12 to five hours.

Dr. Omar Al-Khouli, professor of law at King Abdul Aziz University, said taking legal action against SEC was the right of the victims.

The company has to pay damages if the outages are caused by its negligence, he said in a statement to Al-Madinah Arabic daily. But SEC has put the blame on the contracting companies working on the city sewage network project.

Subscribers, however, don’t want to hear these justifications and won’t buy this blame game.

Nasser Al-Asmary, a Saudi, expressed his anguish over the recurrent outages. Muhammad Ahmed urged the company to find out the reasons for the outages and solve them as quickly as possible in order to avoid similar incidents.

“These outages are causing a lot of problems for the public and losses to businesses,” said Hajjaj ibn Diyab Al-Salehi. “The company should take it seriously and find immediate solutions.”

Residents complained about power outages for more than eight hours in some neighborhoods on Sunday.

Dr. Sami Dawood, director general of King Fahd Hospital in Jeddah, said that the hospital was affected by the power cuts.

“The outages have delayed the work of doctors as well as lab technicians,” he said, adding that hospital generators cover only 40 percent of the facility — sensitive areas, such as intensive care units, operating rooms and emergency sections.

Economist Dr. Ali Al-Deqaq urged the company to strengthen its infrastructure in order to meet the growing power demand in the city.

He also called for the establishment of three firms to ensure efficient generation, transmission and distribution of power.

Tarek Al-Betairy, acting executive president of the company, said SEC had implemented a number of projects in the Western Province in order to increase generating capacity.

“We have spent more than SR8.7 billion during the past five years on new projects,” he said, noting that the projects helped the company provide power connections to 381,000 new subscribers. He said sewage-network had damaged electrical lines in many parts of the city.

“Sometimes, the contractors don’t even inform us about the damages they caused to electrical lines,” he said.

He urged government departments to instruct contractors to get maps of power lines from SEC offices. He also wanted all contractors to coordinate with the company while carrying out their projects. Contractors are required to repair the damages caused to electricity network under a royal decree that calls for the protection of public utilities, he said.