Home > IRAK:Transport workers strike over fuel shortages
Transport workers strike over fuel shortages
Azzaman, February 15, 2007
Taxi and bus drivers are staging a strike in the northern city of Mosul over fuel shortages.
The strike has almost brought life to a standstill in the city home to nearly two million people.
Drivers taking part in the strike said they had not received their share of subsidized petrol for more than a month.
Iraq’s fuel crisis started shortly after the U.S. invasion and has since aggravated and is felt across the country.
Fuel is extremely hard to get and the scanty quantities available in the spot market are beyond the reach of the majority of Iraqis.
The head of the transport union in the Province of Nineveh of which Mosul is the capital said the drivers went on strike without telling the union.
“Nonetheless, we support them and will offer whatever it needs to have their demands satisfied,” said Shafaa Taha, the transport union chief.
He accused the local authorities of failing to honor promises to provide drivers with the fuel they need.
“Most private factories in Mosul are idle for lack of fuel and as result a great number of workers are without jobs, exacerbating unemployment,” he said.
A source at the State Company for Oil Products in the north said Mosul has been without fuel supplies for over a month.
He aid the city needed one million liters of gasoline a day and 700 tons of liquefied gas.
The refinery complex in Baiji, north of Baghdad, used to supply the city with its fuel needs.
But the source alleged that corruption and mismanagement were preventing the complex from working “properly”.
“The refinery is under the influence of a mafia-like gang which controls production and distribution,” he said.