British Mandate: A Survey of Palestine: Volume II - Page 973

CHAPTER XXV.

a subsidiary company under the name of the Auja Irrigation Company, Ltd. to develop irrigation in a part of the concession area.

9. The Jordan Concession. By an indenture made on 5th March, 1926, between the High Commissioner and the Palestine Electric Corporation Limited a concession for a period of seventy years was granted for the utilization of the waters of the River Jordan and its basin, including the Yarmuk River, for the purpose of generating by power derived from these waters and supplying and distributing electrical energy within all Palestine and TransJordan, subject to the rights previously granted by Government in (a) the electrical concessions mentioned in paragraphs 7 and 8 above and (b) the Huleh concession. The Jordan concession was validated in Palestine by the Electricity Concessions Ordinance 1927 in Part I of the schedule to which it is set out in full* and in Trans-Jordan by the Electricity Concession Law, 1928**.

The Palestine Electric Corporation has supplied electrical energy to all the towns of Palestine with the exception of (a) Nablus, Hebron, Beersheba and Jericho which are within their concession area and (b) Jerusalem, Ramallah and Bethlehem which are supplied by the Jerusalem Electric and Public Service Corporation. The Municipal Council of Nablus has recently obtained the consent of the High Commissioner, required by article 28 of the Company's concession, to negotiate with the Company for the supply of electric light and power to that town.

The total sales of the Palestine Electric Corporation Limited amounted in 1944 to 173,636,900 kilowatt hours; their sales for industrial purposes amounted to 32.5% of the total and those for irrigation were 28.8%. The total sales of the Jerusalem Electric and Public Service Corporation in 1944 were 14,173,733 kilowatt hours. The consumption of electrical energy produced by both Companies together rose from 1,847 ,Z23 kilowatt hours in 1925 to 187 ,810,633 kilowatt hours in 1944.

Under the Electricity Ordinance 1926*** no person is permitted to establish or extend any installation for the production, supply, distribution or sale of electrical energy without a permit from the High Commissioner. No permit is granted unless the High Commissioner is satisfied that the rights of concessionaires are not infringed thereby. There is nothing in the Palestine Electric
____________________________
* Drayton. Vol. I, page 634.
** Seton, page 160.

*** Drayton, Vol. I, page 632.

973