Nada Homsi and Khaled Yacoub Oweis, 'Anger as Syria raises electricity prices in major shift', The National, 5 November 2025
Source ID
SRC-333
Citation
Nada Homsi and Khaled Yacoub Oweis, 'Anger as Syria raises electricity prices in major shift', The National, 5 November 2025
URL or path
https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/mena/2025/11/05/anger-as-syria-raises-electricity-prices-in-major-shift/; research/SRC-F5d_TheNational_anger_electricity_prices_2025-11-05.html; text at research/SRC-F5d_TheNational_anger_electricity_prices_2025-11-05.txt
Type
News reporting with named ministry sourcing
Hierarchy tier
4
Published
2025-11-05
Accessed
2026-08-22
Snapshot
Full HTML archived and converted to text 22 August 2026
Claims
Retrievals F1 and F5; the tariff and the protests
Status
READ
Version history
The register keeps changing after the book is fixed in print. Each entry below was added to this row in the order shown.
RETRIEVED AND READ IN FULL, 22 AUGUST 2026, retrievals F1 and F5. THE TARIFF STRUCTURE, VERBATIM, AND THE BILLING PERIOD IS THE PART THE MANUSCRIPT OMITS: 'Under the new system, people pay in two-month instalments, with prices divided into tiers. The first tier, designed for low-income households, remains 60 per cent subsidised by the government, with a ceiling of 300 kilowatt hours. Households will now pay about 600 Syrian pounds ($0.052) per KWH, or about $15 every two months. It is a dramatic increase from the previous rate of NINE Syrian pounds per kilowatt hour, or a total of $0.27 per billing period. Household that exceed the 300 kWh ceiling will pay the second-tier price of 1,400 pounds for every extra hour. A third and fourth tier are intended for public institutions and factories, which will be priced at about 1,700 to 1,800 pounds per KWH.' THE OLD RATE IS NINE, NOT NINE TO TEN. The manuscript prints '9 to 10 old Syrian pounds per kilowatt hour' and this report gives nine. Its '5,400 per cent' is therefore the book's own arithmetic on an unstated pair and must be labelled and recomputed: 600 against 9 is an increase of about 6,567 per cent, and against 10 about 5,900. THE MINISTRY DEFENDS THE THRESHOLD IN ITS OWN WORDS: energy ministry officials told The National the first tier was capped at 300 kWh 'to reflect the consumption of the average Syrian household', and Mr Al Salat is quoted: 'Three hundred kilowatts is more than enough for the average household. It's actually over the average.' Set against a Damascus mother of four who told the paper her household consumed more than 600 kWh on average and calculated an additional $36 a cycle. EFFECTIVE DATE AND FIRST BILLS: 'The decision took effect on November 1, with bills reflecting the new rates expected to be issued in January, sources from the energy ministry told The National.' THE PROTESTS, AND THE PROVENANCE IS EXPLICIT: 'PRO-GOVERNMENT MEDIA reported small protests against the tariff rise in central Syria in the areas of Salamiyah as well as the industrial area of Hasia.' Dozens of people, footage on social media, signs reading 'My electricity bill is higher than my salary' and 'Electricity is a right, not a luxury'. Any use says the protest reports are pro-government media's. CONTEXT FIGURES ON THE FACE: average salary about $60 a month; the currency trading at 11,500 Syrian pounds to the dollar; and 90 per cent of people below the poverty line 'according to UN estimates'.