Source: Kuwaiti news
Writer: Nasser Zaidan
For more than ten years, the electricity sector has been a huge burden on the Lebanese, and it was the main reason for the financial collapse that occurred, because the sector consumed nearly $50 billion of public funds that the state borrowed through treasury bonds from banks, and these funds are deposits for citizens and some investors. From Arabs and foreigners, and it refused to return it or pay its interest.
On January 18, 2023, the caretaker government held a meeting chaired by Najib Mikati, devoted to discussing the status of the Electricité du Liban Corporation, following the corporation’s board of directors approved an increase in billing tariffs. At that time, Mikati announced that addressing the electricity problem solves 50% of the country’s problems. The Council of Ministers agreed to grant electricity an advance of 62 million dollars as fuel for the factories, and 54 million dollars for maintenance and operation, provided that a subsequent plan at a cost of 300 million dollars will be approved if the first phase of reform succeeds.
After nearly three months, it was confirmed that the plan had failed miserably, and the citizens were not provided with 8 or 10 hours of electricity, as the plan noted, and the supply is limited today to supplying the public network with between two and four hours of electricity, according to the discretionary preferences of the Ministry of Energy officials, and the citizens were unable to supply Dispensing with private generators and their high bills, because government nutrition is insufficient and does not meet the minimum life needs.
And the most dangerous of all, the new pricing noticed that bills were paid on the basis of 27 US cents as a price per kilowatt, paid in pounds according to an exchange platform that today has reached more than 90 thousand Lebanese pounds per dollar, and the Ministry of Energy is negotiating with contractors from the private sector to buy one kilowatt by 5.5 cents, and it would have paid 10 cents for a kilowatt to Jordan if the agreement to extract energy through Syria was implemented, and there are secret negotiations taking place with Qatari and French companies to buy electricity produced by them at similar prices. This confirms that the state’s delivery of electricity at a price of 27 cents is very high and unfair, and it is calculated on an exchange rate on the date of issuance of the bills, and not on the date of consumption, which may double the cost for citizens.
The most dangerous of all, the reform plan provided for the payment of a rehabilitation fee for each subscriber amounting to 800,000 pounds per month, while there are no rehabilitation works for the network at present, and this fee was imposed following the end of the war, because the network was mostly destroyed or malfunctioning. The bill also noted the payment of a subscription fee that sometimes amounts to more than one million pounds per month according to the size of the hour, which was previously noticeable when the feeding amounted to more than 20 hours per day before the year 2003, while the same percentage is paid today and at the price of an exchange platform, and feeding Not more than two hours per day in most areas.
The crumbling purchasing power of citizens does not allow them to pay the value of the bills that were sent to them, and at the same time they pay an imaginary bill for private generators, and the income of the majority of the Lebanese has decreased more than 50 times from two years ago until today.
The draft law being discussed by the parliamentary committees provides for allowing the production of electricity from citizens or private companies and selling it to the Electricité du Liban at prices determined by the market, but the law may not see the light soon, due to the lack of agreement between Christian parliamentary blocs and the budget to participate in any legislative sessions before electing a president of the republic. And the process of electing the president seems to be in a dark and complicated box so far.
The Ministry of Energy, which has been in charge of the Free Patriotic Movement for more than 13 years, is still dealing with the electricity file with the same pillars it adopted previously, which led to the disaster we are living in today.
