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Power outage sparks chaos at ministry

ABU DHABI — A power outage due to heavy pressure on main transformers yesterday hit the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs building creating chaos and taking the ministry to the old manual system in handling transactions. Electronic equipment and computer systems ceased to operate and the processing of transactions in all sections came to a jolting halt leading to a state of anarchy, for both the public and the staff.

The power outage started at 11am and continued till the end of the working hours, though electricity was restored several times, but the current was not stable. A few procedures, which were not of much help to the public were manually handled.

Speaking to this reporter, an employee at the ministry said: “The power outage occurred six times. We stayed idle the whole day because we turned off the systems fearing recurrent outage would result in technical problems.” On Saturday, a partial power outage occurred at the Facilities Unit. However, officials at the department said power supply resumed within a short time and that the process of work was not disturbed.

When contacted, Ahmed Khajoor, Assistant Undersecretary for Manpower and Planning, said repeated power outages adversely impeded the process of work and created problems in making various transactions. “We have discussed the electricity outage with the Abu Dhabi Electricity Authority and have been promised that no more electricity failures would occur,” said Khajoor.

The official attributed the cause of the power failure to heavy power consumption that increased the pressure on the main transformers. “It seems the load on the transformers has become greater as most of the departments have recently introduced electronic devices, peripherals, ACs and computer systems.”

The ministry will shift to a new premises by September.

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