Residents of Kabul expressed concerns over the shortage of power, saying that they are facing many challenges as winter approaches.

Some residents in Kabul said that they have just seven to eight hours of electricity each 24 hours.

“We have a lot of problems due to the shortage of power. When the clients see that the shop is dark, they don’t come in,” said Baseer Ahmad, a resident of Kabul.

“I call on the officials and Ministry of Energy and Water to pay attention to solve the issue of power if possible,” said Mohammad Qurban, a resident of Kabul.

This comes as the Da Afghanistan Breshna Sherkat (DABS) vowed that the volume of electricity being imported from Uzbekistan will increase in the winter to alleviate the shortages.

“We have connected a line of Turkmenistan’s electricity to Kabul and also we widely use our domestic power,” said Hekmatullah Maiwandi, a spokesman for DABS.

The Afghan private sector is also suffering from a shortage of electricity in the country.

Those employees who were sent home due to a “cut in electricity in the factories, will be sent back to work,” said Mohammad Karim Azimi, head of the Kabul Chamber of Industry and Mines.

“DABS should bring reforms in its management and avoid the waste of power,” said Amanullah Ghalib, the former head of DABS.

Afghanistan imports around 80 percent of its electricity from neighboring countries, particularly Central Asian nations.

On Sunday, DABS announced that 50 percent of electricity in 13 provinces had been cut due to technical problems with imported power from Uzbekistan.