ISTANBUL, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Households and businesses in Turkey have been plagued by rising energy bills following a massive hike in tariffs in January, exposing the country's heavy reliance on energy imports amid a global surge in electricity and gas prices.
The annual inflation rate in Turkey has surged to a two-decade high of 48.7 percent, according to data revealed earlier this month, increasing the burden on the population with rising living costs.
PROTESTS ARISING
Thousands of people throughout Turkey took to the street last weekend in protest of climbing electricity fees, local press reported.
Marches took place in the western provinces of Izmir and Mugla and the southeastern provinces of Diyarbakir, Agri, and Mardin, with crowds carrying and burning their electricity bills in a show of protest.
The protests came as consumers and businesses have been hit with an electricity price hike of between 50-127 percent on Jan. 1, along with a 50 percent increase in natural gas bills.
Several people were detained by the police in Mardin. Protesters were quoted by the press as saying that the recent rise in the minimum wage had become effectively meaningless because of utility price hikes.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced in December last year a record 50 percent rise in the minimum wage to help offset surging living costs amid high inflation and a currency slump.
MOUNTING COMPLAINTS
In the bustling commercial Besiktas district of Turkey's largest city Istanbul, a small cafe owner Cengiz Dikmen told Xinhua that his electricity bill was up 120 percent compared to December 2021.
As Turkey is heavily dependent on oil and gas imports, the sharp depreciation of the lira translated into climbing energy costs for consumers. Furthermore, the global gas supply crunch and rising oil prices are amplifying the nation's economic woes.
"I was paying around 1,500 Turkish liras (110 U.S. dollars), but now the bill is more than 3,400 liras (250 dollars), it's incomprehensible, how can we survive with such high electricity costs as a business selling tea and coffee," he said.
In a nearby shop, owner Nilufer Karayalcin told Xinhua that she was astonished by her electricity and gas bills, "the amount of the two bills are nearly as high as the monthly rent of the shop. I don't know what to do."
Households have seen their electricity bills rise by 95 percent last year and by 247 percent in the past four years, according to data from the Turkish Statistical Institute.
One restaurant in Istanbul's Sirinevler district put a sign on its window, which said, "Our electricity bill for this month is 45,786 liras (3,380 dollars)," and shared it on Twitter as a sign of protest.
VICIOUS CYCLE
Turkey's power demand rose by 42 percent between 2011 and 2021. Only half of this rise was met by renewables such as wind and solar energy. The country's thirst for power consumption pushes its energy imports even higher.
"Turkey is over 70 percent reliant on imports. Our import bill is at the core of a widening current account deficit," Necdet Pamir, an expert on energy policies, recently said, noting that the country's energy imports fluctuate between 18 and 24 percent of all imports, which is something between 40 and 45 billion dollars each year.
The disruption for two weeks of Iranian gas imports in late January to Turkey due to a technical failure in the pipeline impacted heavily many Turkish industrial businesses, further exposing Turkey's energy vulnerability.
A halt to Iranian imports coincided with a period of high demand over a cold snap, forcing Turkey's state-owned BOTAS Petroleum Pipeline Company to announce gas supply cuts of up to 40 percent to large consumers.
For Turkey, gas imports from Iran reduce reliance on Russia, which is the country's largest supplier. Turkey also buys gas from Azerbaijan and liquefied natural gas from Algeria and Nigeria.
Meanwhile, tens of thousands of people were left in the dark and bitter cold for nearly five days from Thursday to Monday this week in the Mediterranean province of Isparta, due to heavy snowfall, which disrupted the power grids.
The governor of Isparta was removed from office on Monday following the unprecedented event which paralyzed life in the area of some 300,000 users.
Addressing citizens' mounting complaints, Presidential Spokesperson Ibrahim Kalin said Monday evening during a television interview that the government was mulling measures to reduce electricity fees.
"There will be a new regulation on electricity bills very soon," he said, without elaborating. ■