Muntazahat Al-Sharqia District have been experiencing frequent power outages for three years with many homes experiencing the outages five to six times a day. One resident, Yahya Al-Jandali said it has been a problem for a long time and needs to be resolved since the temperatures during the day reach 40°C, Al-Madina reported Friday. One major problem is that Sausi Eectricity Company sometimes takes several hours to arrive and restore power. Another resident, Faleh Al-Sulami said the power outages are blamed on overloads of the local network. His diabetic father needs to have his insulin injectiosn stored in a refrigarator and his three- month old daughter can develop serious health problems when exposed to high temperatures. He said it is not uncommon to see residents roaming the streets waiting for electricity repairmen to restore power to the area. Many residents have left the area to find homes elsewhere which do not experience frequent power outages. Sources at the Electricity company have confirmed that the power outages are due to overloads of the networks and they are working to solve the problem. Several other regions across the Kingdom have also been experiencing power outages such as the Eastern Province (EP), Al-Qassim, Hail and Al-Jouf for the second consecutive day. Officials at the SABIC factories in the region have said they are considering plans of implementing generators to combat this problem. When the factories are shut down because of power outages officials have said they lose millions of riyals of production. Chairman of the Industrial Committee for the Eastern Province Chamber of Commerce and Industry said the Electricity Company has failed in keeping its promise of no power cuts this year and that electrical outages were a thing of the past. If the problem was not remedied, he said the Kingdom would lose out on investment opportunities. Al-Hayat said everal residents of the EP have moved to neighboring Kuwait for fear that the outages would continue for the rest of the summer where temperatures are expected to hit 50 degrees Centigrade.
