Muscat: Top government officials of the southern governorate of Dhofar met with representatives of the region’s main power company on Monday for urgent deliberations following an outage that blanketed large swathes of the area last week.
Led by Syed Mohammad Bin Sultan Al Busaidi, Minister of State and Governor of Dhofar, the officials met with the CEO and senior staff of Dhofar Power Company, the main supplier of electricity to the region. The blackout, one of the most acute ones to have affected the tourist hotspot in recent times, disrupted supply to Salalah and a number of neighbouring provinces.
Authorities concerned
The timing of the outage, ahead of the key Khareef holiday season in Dhofar, has been a source of great concern for authorities. Tens of thousands of mainly GCC tourists descend on Dhofar during the June-September summer season to enjoy the region’s salubrious weather and mist-shrouded settings.
The utility blamed the blackout on a glitch in the transmission network linking the Ittin and Thamrait transformer stations. It pledged to deploy backup systems during further blackouts in the crucial Khareef season.
