Lebanon's Electricity Company Obstructs Work of State Institutions

Électricité du Liban building (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Électricité du Liban building (Asharq Al-Awsat)
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Lebanon's Electricity Company Obstructs Work of State Institutions

Électricité du Liban building (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Électricité du Liban building (Asharq Al-Awsat)

Hallway windows leading to the office of Lebanon’s prime minister in the Grand Serail in central Beirut are covered with curtains of another kind.

Wood panels, and pieces of reinforced nylon, are what separates the office from the outside world. Moreover, the hard shutters help air conditioning systems maintain indoor air quality and temperatures, especially when Prime Minister Najib Mikati is in his office receiving guests.

The government palace, since the deadly August 4 port explosion, has remained the same. Besides shattered glass, some of the Grand Serail’s institutions were put out of service.

However, some of the destruction was improved on—such as replacing window glass with hardened nylon.

Serail sources speak of a Kuwaiti pledge to repair what was damaged.

According to the same sources, the Council for Development and Reconstruction is expected to undertake the task of coordinating and developing studies in preparation for their execution.

Despite hopes and plans for fixing the damage sustained by the government palace, there remains the problem of electricity, which rarely reaches the Serail.

Power cuts have forced officials at the Serail to ration services that depend on electricity. They now turn off air conditioners in most of the government palace’s offices.

Air conditioning is only turned on in the prime minister’s office, whenever he is present or scheduled for meetings. When Mikati is gone, the officials go back to rationing electricity to a bare minimum.

The absence of the prime minister has become more evident recently, with him limiting his appointments to pre-noon hours only, and to four days a week in order to save energy and fuel.

As for Parliament, the recent power outage that prevented parliamentary committees from convening on Tuesday and before was not the first of its kind.

Most parliamentary sessions recently have suffered from power cuts, including the confidence session for Mikati’s government last year, and the election session for the speaker and his deputy months ago.

These power shortages paint a picture of how the public sector and government institutions in Lebanon are slowly collapsing under the brunt of Electricite du Liban’s inability to secure electricity and the institutions’ budgets failing to cover exchange rate differences.

The financial crisis that hit the country has affected the working mechanisms of the Lebanese state apparatus.

Banque du Liban and the state as a whole failing to recognize the collapse of the Lebanese pound, and their insisting on adopting the old price of 1,500 pounds to the dollar, renders state agencies unable to adapt to the currency’s realistic price.

On Tuesday, the Lebanese pound’s exchange rate crossed the threshold of 34,000 pounds to the dollar.

This has left state institutions unable to purchase supplies from abroad according to the official price.

Electricite du Liban constantly complains that the Central Bank is not complying with its request to convert what it owns in its accounts from pounds to dollars according to the official exchange rate to purchase equipment, spare parts, and fuel.

Consequently, Lebanon must live on fuel from Iraq.

Iraqi fuel only provides three hours of electricity each day, as opposed to the 12 hours daily that Lebanese plants can offer should fuel become more accessible.

A source in the Lebanese Parliament told Asharq Al-Awsat that the cause of the crisis was the lack of communication with the Director General of Electricite du Liban.

When contacting the chief of Electricite du Liban ahead of parliamentary sessions, to secure the parliament’s electricity, it was discovered that they were in the hospital due to a health crisis.

With the fuel needed to run power generators running out, the decision was to postpone the sessions.

According to the source, the inability to secure fuel can be traced back to the depletion of credits, which are still based on the exchange rate of 1,500 pounds to the dollar.

Additional credits have been requested from the Ministry of Finance, but they have not yet been secured, the source explained.

“Electricite du Liban can provide between 10 and 12 hours of electricity per day, in the event that the necessary fuel is secured, but we are currently limited to what reaches us from Iraqi fuel, which provides three hours of unstable supply,” a source at the Lebanese Energy Ministry told Asharq Al-Awsat.

As for Baabda Palace, its situation is relatively better, as it is characterized by a special treatment, as does the Ministry of Defense. The two institutions make up for what they lack in power supply by operating their own generators and securing fuel from their flexible and independent budget.

But this does not prevent momentary power outages in the President’s office when he receives his foreign guests. When the power goes out the President usually apologizes with a shy smile, offset by a smile of understanding from the guest who knows, like other foreign officials, the extent of the electricity problem in Lebanon.

“It is an unfortunate situation that the Parliament is forced to postpone the meeting of its committees due to the power outage and the unavailability of diesel fuel to operate the generator in the Parliament,” tweeted lawmaker Faisal al-Sayegh.

Sayegh blamed the head of the Free Patriotic Movement, Gebran Bassil.

Lebanon’s political class often exchanges blame for the electricity problem.

Those responsible for Lebanon’s power supply have not been able to resolve the electricity crisis since the end of the civil war in the nineties of the last century, despite the very large sums that were spent on this sector.

The failure to fix the public power sector has led to the emergence of a parallel electricity sector that is established on illegal private generators that are treated as a fait accompli.

While President Michel Aoun’s rivals hold his son-in-law, Bassil, responsible for the great waste and lack of achievement, the latter accuses the politicians opposing him of obstructing his mission.

Bassil had directly and indirectly supervised the sector for more than 15 years.

He sometimes blames the sector’s failures on Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, former Premier Saad Hariri and the current prime minister, Mikati.



Hezbollah Fires about 250 Rockets, Other Projectiles into Israel in Heaviest Barrage in Weeks

Members of the Israeli forces inspect a site following a rocket fired from Lebanon hit an area in Rinatya, outskirts of Tel Aviv, Israel, Sunday, Nov. 24, 2024. (AP)
Members of the Israeli forces inspect a site following a rocket fired from Lebanon hit an area in Rinatya, outskirts of Tel Aviv, Israel, Sunday, Nov. 24, 2024. (AP)
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Hezbollah Fires about 250 Rockets, Other Projectiles into Israel in Heaviest Barrage in Weeks

Members of the Israeli forces inspect a site following a rocket fired from Lebanon hit an area in Rinatya, outskirts of Tel Aviv, Israel, Sunday, Nov. 24, 2024. (AP)
Members of the Israeli forces inspect a site following a rocket fired from Lebanon hit an area in Rinatya, outskirts of Tel Aviv, Israel, Sunday, Nov. 24, 2024. (AP)

Hezbollah fired about 250 rockets and other projectiles into Israel on Sunday, wounding seven people in one of the group's heaviest barrages in months, in response to deadly Israeli strikes in Beirut while negotiators pressed on with ceasefire efforts to halt the all-out war.

Some of the rockets reached the Tel Aviv area in the heart of Israel.

Meanwhile, an Israeli strike on an army center killed a Lebanese soldier and wounded 18 others in the southwest between Tyre and Naqoura, Lebanon's military said.  

The Israeli military expressed regret, saying that the strike occurred in an area of combat against Hezbollah and that the military's operations are directed solely against the fighters.

Israeli strikes have killed over 40 Lebanese troops since the start of the war between Israel and Hezbollah, even as Lebanon's military has largely kept to the sidelines.

Lebanon's caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, condemned the latest strike as an assault on US-led ceasefire efforts, calling it a “direct, bloody message rejecting all efforts and ongoing contacts” to end the war.

Hezbollah fires rockets after strikes on Beirut  

Hezbollah began firing rockets, missiles and drones into Israel after Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack out of the Gaza Strip ignited the war there. Hezbollah has portrayed the attacks as an act of solidarity with the Palestinians and Hamas. Iran supports both armed groups.

Israel launched retaliatory airstrikes at Hezbollah, and in September the low-level conflict erupted into all-out war as Israel launched waves of airstrikes across large parts of Lebanon and killed Hezbollah's top leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and several top commanders.

The Israeli military said about 250 projectiles were fired Sunday, with some intercepted.

Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service said it treated seven people, including a 60-year old man in severe condition from rocket fire on northern Israel, a 23-year-old man who was lightly wounded by a blast in the central city of Petah Tikva, near Tel Aviv, and a 70-year-old woman who suffered smoke inhalation from a car that caught fire there.  

In Haifa, a rocket hit a residential building that police said was in danger of collapsing.

The Palestine Red Crescent reported 13 injuries it said were caused by an interceptor missile that struck several homes in Tulkarem in the West Bank. It was unclear whether the injuries and damage elsewhere were caused by rockets or interceptors.

Sirens wailed again in central and northern Israel hours later.

Israeli airstrikes without warning on Saturday pounded central Beirut, killing at least 29 people and wounding 67, according to Lebanon's Health Ministry.

Smoke billowed above Beirut again Sunday with new strikes. Israel's military said it targeted Hezbollah command centers in the southern suburbs, known as Dahiyeh, where the group has a strong presence.

Israeli attacks have killed more than 3,700 people in Lebanon, according to the Health Ministry. The fighting has displaced about 1.2 million people, or a quarter of Lebanon’s population.

On the Israeli side, about 90 soldiers and nearly 50 civilians have been killed by bombardment in northern Israel and in battle following Israel's ground invasion in early October. Around 60,000 Israelis have been displaced from the country's north.

EU envoy calls for pressure to reach a truce  

The Biden administration has spent months trying to broker a ceasefire, and US envoy Amos Hochstein was in the region last week.

The European Union’s top diplomat called Sunday for more pressure on Israel and Hezbollah to reach a deal, saying one was "pending with a final agreement from the Israeli government.”

Josep Borrell spoke after meeting with Mikati and Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, a Hezbollah ally who has been mediating with the group.

Borrell said the EU is ready to allocate 200 million euros ($208 million) to assist the Lebanese military, which would deploy additional forces to the south.

The emerging agreement would pave the way for the withdrawal of Hezbollah and Israeli troops from southern Lebanon below the Litani River in accordance with the UN Security Council resolution that ended the monthlong 2006 war. Lebanese troops would patrol with the presence of UN peacekeepers.