The caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati contacted the General Director of the institution, Kamal Hayek, asking him to attend. However, Hayek refused, stating that "he has no official capacity" and that he cannot attend in the absence of Minister of Energy Walid Fayyad. Mikati responded by asserting that the request for participation is "an order," to which Hayek replied, "Good!"
Recent events have highlighted the increasing complexity of the approval process for an advance to purchase fuel for electricity production plants. The legal process for unloading the ships stuck at sea remains frozen due to the political dispute, which has escalated to the point where the Prime Minister refused to respond yesterday to calls from the Energy Minister, as the latter stated, affirming that "the solution to this crisis can be achieved in a thousand constitutional ways outside the Council of Ministers."
In a call with "Al-Akhbar," Fayyad expressed that "the problem lies in Mikati's breach of the agreement we reached." He added, "I will not obstruct the solution, but I object to the formulation; the solution they are discussing is part of the plan outlined by the ministry, and it requires securing $600 million over a five-month period to increase supply hours to around ten hours." In this context, ministerial sources viewed that "the agenda of the Prime Minister and those behind him is to sedate the people and provide a half-solution. Is it normal that they can secure over $700 million in days for operations on the Sayrafa platform with exchange and money transfer companies, yet they cannot secure $600 million for the electricity plan?"
