Lebanese Forces party leader Samir Geagea pointed out that, as has happened every time at the last moment, the government resorts to choosing between either a power outage or reaching into citizens' pockets through the central bank to obtain the necessary funds to manage the sector. He emphasized that this approach is "completely unacceptable," as the relevant ministries, particularly in this case, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Energy, are in a state of deadly stagnation and immense irresponsibility, as well as squandering public funds and citizens’ affairs.
In a statement, Geagea said that the government should firmly take charge and enhance its revenues in hard currency, "a task it has neglected and wasted hundreds of millions of dollars in more than one sector." He added: "The government must ask the Ministry of Finance to pay the dues of ministries and public administrations for the interests of Electricité du Liban," stressing that the real solution to the electricity issue "is fairness in bill collection, which also needs to be reassessed, especially since some of it is illegal (the currency exchange rate plus 20%), while others are unfair, such as the rehabilitation fee and subscription charges."
He said: "The electricity sale tariff, after the state raised it in recent months, has become sufficient to cover its production costs, if not more! So why the need to reach into the central bank's reserves, which is essentially what remains of people's deposits?" He added: "The real problem with electricity lies in ignoring the state's real resources and the ease of withdrawing money from the central bank. This habit must stop immediately, as it has been one of the main reasons for the deterioration we are experiencing today."
He concluded: "Successive governments, including the Ministry of Finance, waste three billion dollars annually on smuggling and tax and customs evasion. Instead of pressuring the central bank to obtain hundreds of millions of dollars, the government, especially the Ministry of Finance, should mobilize all its forces to stop waste in state resources and halt all forms of smuggling and tax and customs evasion." He ended the statement with, "It is futile to pour water into a leaky container; the solution is to seal all the holes in the container."
