Iraq is trying to help by enrolling electricity ministry employees in a program to address adult illiteracy after a new report found that “nearly 20,000 Iraqi electricity ministry employees illiterate.”
But the challenge may be larger than the fact that so many are illiterate. The problem is they are working in a key energy infrastructure field in a country that is now at the center of the Iran conflict with the US and Israel. Iraq has suffered greatly from the chaos in the Strait of Hormuz.
In the last weeks, several key Islamic Republic officials journeyed to Iraq to pressure the country. Iran is offering a trade-off. Iraq may be allowed to export more oil via the Strait of Hormuz. However, Baghdad would likely have to shelve a plan to rein in Iranian-backed militias.
What do the 20,000 illiterate electric employees have to do with this? They are a symbol of a system in Iraq that has allowed corruption and infrastructure decay to grow over the last decades. This is in part due to Iranian influence. Iran has tried to control Iraq and make it dependent. Electricity and energy are some of the ways that Iran seeks to make Baghdad dependent.
Iran’s role in trying to harm Iraq’s electric grid is clear. For instance, the one part of Iraq that is partly free from Iranian influence is the autonomous Kurdistan Region. That region was recently able to solve many longstanding electrical problems via new energy investment and the Dana Gas project at the Khor Mor field.
This field helps supply gas to power plants in Erbil and other areas of the Kurdistan Region, accounting for around 75% of the region’s electricity capacity. Kurdistan went from a region where many people relied on generators to a place where there is electricity all day long.
Iran has used its militias to target the Khor Mor field. This has caused a suspension of gas and electricity flow. Now another dispute has arisen. Reports from Rudaw and other media note that Dana Gas and Crescent Petroleum deny claims by the regional government that they supplied natural gas to the rest of Iraq.
Illiterate employees may be ‘ghost’ employees
The issue is that the illiterate employees of the electricity ministry may be “ghost” employees who don’t even work. It’s not clear how one would have so many illiterate employees in a key sector.
Rudaw says that “nearly 20,000 employees of Iraq’s electricity ministry are illiterate and have been enrolled in a government program to teach them reading and writing, an education ministry official said on Saturday, attributing the high number largely to the hiring of contract workers in recent years.”
“We have launched a joint program with the Iraqi Ministry of Electricity to teach 19,939 employees in Baghdad and other provinces,” Haitham Munther, director of media and communications at the Executive Agency for Literacy Eradication at the Iraqi education ministry, told Rudaw’s Gashaw Khalid.
And why has this happened?
“He attributed the large number of illiterate employees primarily to the widespread recruitment of contract workers in recent years,” Munther said. “In principle, it should be impossible for an employee to be illiterate. However, as you know, the issue of contract workers arose in recent years. Previously, the number of Ministry of Electricity staff was stable between 90,000 and 95,000, but in recent years, more than 100,000 people have been added solely through contracts.”
Illiteracy wider problem throughout the ministry
There are more problems of illiteracy across Iraq’s government. At the Interior Ministry, 11,000 members are learning to read.
“Iraq’s 2024 national census put the country’s illiteracy rate at 15.3%. While senior civil service positions generally require university or technical qualifications, illiteracy among government employees is concentrated largely among lower-ranking personnel, including members of security forces, local police, municipal services, and facility protection forces.”
It should be noted that Iraq’s electricity grid has long been one of the country’s strategic vulnerabilities. Despite possessing some of the world’s largest oil and natural gas reserves, Iraq continues to struggle to provide reliable electricity to its population.
The country’s modern electricity crisis has its roots in decades of conflict. The Iran-Iraq War, the 1991 Gulf War, years of sanctions during the 1990s, the 2003 US-led invasion, and later the war against ISIS have all damaged power plants.
There is also Iraq’s dependence on Iranian energy. Since 2017, Iraq has relied heavily on imports of Iranian natural gas to fuel power plants near Baghdad and Basra, while also importing electricity directly from Iran.
This illustrates how the illiterate employees are only the tip of the iceberg.
