Baghdad - Long fuel queues, power cuts for up to 20 hours a day, no government plan to reduce the shortages despite a huge budget as well as soaring summer temperatures coupled with a blinding dust storm. These are just a few of the many grievances that are fuelling resentment among Baghdadis this summer. "This week, we have a choking dust storm and temperatures above 45 degrees but no gasoline and no electricity," says a Baghdadi man, giving vent to his frustration over periodic shortages that hit the Iraqi capital.
Many Iraqis are frustrated that this summer's crunch is a reminder that their government, though controlling a huge, record budget of 42 billion dollars, has failed to end periodic gasoline shortages and power cuts.
To Iraqis, gasoline queues running for up to three kilometres in Baghdad seem to be an oddity in a country that sits on one the world's largest oil reserves and is awash with the bonanza of skyrocketing oil prices.
The oil ministry attributes the current fuel shortage to sabotage at the Musaib pipeline that feeds a refinery in Baghdad with crude oil from the southern fields.
Past fuel shortages were partly blamed on a vulnerable distribution system, which was controlled by gangs of fuel thieves.
Gasoline is sold at a low government-controlled price, standing now at about 1.4 dollars a litre.
This price structure, which is a legacy of the era of former president Saddam Hussein, has created a black market where people buy fuel at the low price and resell it in the black market, sometimes at 10 times the price.
"Things looked better three months ago with a successful crackdown on fuel mafias," said a Baghdadi journalist, who did not want to give his name.
"The distribution system has remarkably improved because many of the fuel robbers who worked at distribution centres have been sacked," he explained.
In Baghdad, the demand for fuel, increasing in summer, is estimated at about 17 million litres a day. Supplies have never met demand since the collapse of the former regime in 2003, which had tight control over the market.
Experts say the Iraqi government has failed to turn the country's oil wealth into usable energy. They attribute this to a mix of factors, including insurgent attacks that regularly target refineries, power plants and the country's thousands of kilometres of pipelines and cables.
Suffering decades of neglect, wars and international sanctions, Iraq's infrastructure from major oil facilities to gas pumps and power transformers is in poor condition, experts say.
Another factor is an influx of tens of thousands of cars imported into a market that was heavily regulated under the former regime.
Rampant corruption is another cause that is also blamed for many major problems in Iraq. A report written by US advisors to Iraq's anti-corruption agency last year analyzed corruption in 12 ministries.
"Corruption protected by senior members of the Iraqi government remains untouchable," the report said.
In the oil ministry, the report said, corruption is a big problem "when it comes to refined oil products, such as gasoline and kerosene."
The report blamed the ministry for gasoline queues stretching for miles as Iraqis wait for hours to fill up their cars.
