Scarcity and Bribery Raise the Price of Gas: Hama’s “Regime” Gas Becomes “Free” in Kfar Nabel
By Hazzaa al-Adnan
(Kfar Nabel, Syria) – Shadia, a young lady from Kfar Nabel who studies law at Aleppo University, says that her father, a farmer, had to cut down five of the 20 fig trees in their modest orchard so that her mother could cook their meals over firewood instead of gas.
“If things don’t get better, we’ll have to cut down more trees. We’re unable to afford the price of gas on the market,” she said.
Fatima, a mother or four, requires two canisters of gas every month and buys them on the market for over 3,000 Syrian liras (around 20 dollars) per canister.
“This is very expensive for us; my husband is a government employee who makes 8,000 liras a month, and we’ve spent it before the month is out!” she said.
Fatima and Shadia are just two of the 30,000 residents of Kfar Nabel who have suffered from government gas shortages for over two months now. Kfar Nabel is located in the southern part of Idlib Province, which has been under armed opposition control for the last year.
There are 17 license-holders for government gas in Kfar Nabel; according to the law, one license is issued per 1,500 residents, and the license accords its owner 300 canisters per order, without any specified limit to the number of orders. But there is a clear shortage of gas, accompanied by a hike in prices, bringing the price of a single canister up to 3,000 liras, while the official price is currently 1,000 liras, compared to a price of 275 liras before the uprising.
An employee in the government-run Idlib Province Council, who preferred to remain anonymous, says there is a gas shortage across all of Idlib province due to the damage inflicted on a local gas plant after it was shelled six months ago.
The Damascus-based Syrian Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, Suleiman al-Abbas, recently spoke to the press about relative stability in gas production “despite over 30 incidents and assaults that the gas network has been subjected to since the beginning of the year.” He emphasized that care is being taken to protect plants and transmission lines and that work is being undertaken to repair the damage as quickly as possible. During a meeting chaired by Abbas to track the production procedures of the organizations and companies affiliated to his ministry, a report emerged that indicates the production of 4.4 billion cubic meters of clean gas over the last nine months.
According to a report issued in November by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), Syria’s petroleum production has suffered a 95 percent decline while its gas production has declined by 50 per cent, with the sector suffering a loss of 633 billion liras (around 4.3 billion dollars) dropping its contribution to the gross domestic product from 13 percent to just three percent.
Production shortage is not the only reason for the price hike in Kfar Nabel. Gas cannot be transported between the provinces without “immense bribes” being paid to government security and administrative officials, according to a man named Mujahid, who owns a license to transport government gas in Southern Idlib Province.
Mujahid explains that the demand for gas in Southern Idlib has given rise to a whole crop of “war profiteers” who transport huge cargoes of government gas from the fuel plant in Hama to Northern Idlib Province, calling it “free gas” as opposed to “regime gas.” This so-called “free gas” is nothing more than government gas sold on the black market by dealers who don’t own licenses, and who are therefore not subject to regulation.
Mujahid quit transporting gas over three months ago, due to repeated beatings and humiliation at checkpoints manned by government forces. The last time he suffered such treatment, he says, was at a checkpoint close to Hama; he says he was beaten because he comes from an area under opposition control.
Fahed, who is licensed to transport government gas in Southern Idlib Province, reveals that he twice received “regime gas” cargoes for transfer from the fuel plant in Idlib to the plant in Homs after paying bribes. He explains that both times, the price of a single canister went up to 1,500 liras due to the cost of bribes and transport, which he then sold for 1,600 liras to his customers.
“I stopped working in gas two months ago,” he added. “I’m tired of the beatings and humiliations at the army checkpoints, just because I belong to a liberated area.”
Ahmad, who works at his father’s store selling the so-called “free gas,” as well as diesel and fuel, confirmed that the gas comes from Hama, through traders come through Southern Idlib almost daily. He buys 50 canisters from them a week, at 3,000 liras (and sometimes more) a canister, then sells it at a profit of no more than 200 liras. Ahmed is one of 20 people who make their living from gas in Kfar Nabel.
The hike in gas prices has had a negative effect on small business owners in the area.
Ahmad Marawi, an owner of a bakery that produces sweets and meat pies, and Hussein al-Mirsal, an owner of a hummus and falafel restaurant, both complain of having had to raise food prices as a result. Farid al-Khodr, who owns a chicken snack restaurant, was forced to close his place because of the gas shortage and its exorbitant prices.
Housewives have become used to cooking using firewood.
Um Mahmoud, who sells yogurt in Kfar Nabel, cooks it over firewood, and has become so proficient she even pasteurizes her milk that way.
Um Marwan was cooking stuffed vegetables over firewood as her eyes dripped with tears from the smoke that filled her front yard, saying that the war has taken everyone “50 years backwards in time.” Her sad eyes, with lashes and eyebrows partially singed away by the fire, express her hopelessness over the fact that there is no solution near at hand to the crisis. Rather, she expects that more of Kfar Nabel’s trees will be cut down for the sake of heating and cooking, “until Kfar Nabel’s mountain is bare and bald.”
Caption: A gas storehouse in Kfar Nabel.
