The newspaper added that the Ministry of Energy has completed everything it requested for the readiness of the technical, administrative, financial and related infrastructure with the concerned parties in Syria, Jordan and Egypt, but the World Bank is refraining from approving the financing pending a “political feasibility study.”
The newspaper asked, why is the World Bank obstructing the agreement to finance the importation of electricity from Jordan and the purchase of gas for power plants from Egypt? It added: “The Minister of Energy Walid Fayyad has no answer. All the minister knows is that the bank wants to conduct an internal political feasibility study. The minister also does not know the goal.” From this study, its timing, nor the background that prompts the international institution to carry it out, while the bank refuses, through official channels, to provide any answer in this regard. : “We raised the question to the administration, and they have no comment.”
Al-Akhbar considered: “There is a lot of strangeness surrounding this procrastination that the World Bank is making and its timing. All that it asked for in terms of the conditions related to the first agreed upon stage, i.e. the negotiation stage, has been implemented. Another part related to the second stage related to what can be called “Activation Terms” or conditions accompanying implementation, although this part is not required in order to proceed with the financing.
