Diesel shipments began making their way to bakeries this morning, narrowly averting a bread crisis. (Credit: AFP)
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Possible hitches in bread production have been avoided for the time being after bakeries began receiving diesel. The head of the bakeries’ syndicate, Ali Ibrahim, had sounded the alarm yesterday that diesel shortages were threatening the sector, saying a large number of bakeries would close if fuel is not supplied to them on Monday. Meanwhile, the head of the private hospitals’ lobby told a Saudi daily that medical facilities were resorting to buying fuel on a daily basis and could not stock up. A fuel sector representative vowed in a radio interview that two tankers would begin unloading diesel at the beginning of the week and that hospitals, bakeries and generator owners would be the first to receive the new shipments. Ibrahim confirmed that as of Monday morning, the deliveries had taken place to bakeries; it was not immediately clear whether hospitals had begun receiving diesel shipments.
The state electricity company has started to further curtail production due to fuel shortages. Électricité du Liban announced on Friday that it would shut down the Deir Ammar and Zahrani power stations if its gas oil stocks run out this week. In the meantime, it said it would ration fuel by lowering output by another 150 megawatts, or approximately 15 percent of the grid’s capacity. According to EDL, a tanker laden with gas oil arrived off the coast of Lebanon on June 28, but its cargo has not been unloaded due to payment delays. The electricity company has faced chronic issues paying for fuel, with the central bank allegedly delaying opening lines of credit, while various legal and legislative formulations to facilitate the process have been unsuccessful. As a result, meager state electricity provision and fuel shortages are causing suffering to residents throughout the country, including in Tripoli, where residents face long blackouts, and Sur and Akkar, where officials have called for the supply of diesel to alleviate dayslong power outages.
Sunday marked 11 months since the Aug. 4, 2020, Beirut port blast, days after the lead investigator in the case requested that immunity be lifted from some top. Judge Tarek Bitar formally asked that immunity be lifted from former Ministers Ali Hasan Khalil, Ghazi Zeaiter and Nouhad Machnouk — who are currently parliamentarians — as well as the heads of State Security and General Security. A judicial source told L’Orient Today that if the judge’s request is granted, Bitar would be able to charge the suspects with “probable intent of murder” and criminal negligence. Four high-ranking Lebanese Army officers were also charged by Bitar, who took over the case in February following the controversial removal of his predecessor, Judge Fadi Sawwan. Families of the victims of the explosion, which killed more than 200 people, gathered on Sunday in front of the port, while a rally is scheduled for today in front of the Justice Palace in support of Bitar’s drive to lift immunity from top officials.
At least 32 people in Lebanon have now been infected with the Delta variant of COVID-19. The recent detection of the Delta variant, which is more contagious than the original strain of the virus, has raised concerns among health experts in Lebanon. Petra Khoury, the caretaker premier’s health adviser, said the country must “prepare for a new round” of battle against COVID-19. Daily deaths from the virus have been in the single digits since May 20, with cases and ICU hospitalizations down as well, after COVID-19 overwhelmed hospitals at the beginning of the year. MP Assem Araji, the head of Parliament’s Health Committee, said that while the Delta variant poses a risk, the health sector is facing a greater threat of collapse from a lack of supplies and staff shortages.
Drug importers warned that already-depleted stocks of foreign medicine would grow scarcer this month. The pharmaceutical importers’ syndicate issued a statement saying that hundreds of essential medicines have run out, with hundreds more set to disappear if imports do not resume. Karim Gebara, the syndicate’s head, told AFP that a number of drugs to treat diabetes, cancer and cardiac diseases are already out of stock. “The situation will be catastrophic by the end of July,” he added. Medical supply importers have said that the central bank has failed to make good on payments for subsidized goods, while Banque du Liban said on May 26 that it was unable to clear all the sector’s invoices without dipping into its mandatory reserves.
Hezbollah’s leader is scheduled to speak again today, his third televised address in the past month. In his previous two speeches, Hassan Nasrallah floated Iranian fuel shipments as a solution to the country’s severe gasoline and diesel shortages. On June 25, Nasrallah claimed that his party had taken the logistic steps to bring in Iranian fuel if shortages persist. Earlier that day, the US ambassador to Lebanon said in a TV interview that Iranian fuel shipments — which ostensibly would run afoul of Washington’s sanction regime against Tehran — would not be a solution.
Public transportation and truck drivers are set to strike on Wednesday following last week’s gasoline price hikes. The land transport unions will hold a press conference today at 11:30 a.m. in preparation for the strike. The unions, which include taxi drivers, have also planned a “day of action” on Wednesday to protest slashes to subsidies. On Saturday, bus drivers briefly blocked the highway just south of Tripoli over gas prices, which were hiked by more than 50 percent last week after the government decided to shift the exchange rate at which it subsidizes fuel from the official peg of about LL1,500 to the US dollar to LL3,900 to the greenback. Despite the price increase, the land transport unions’ head rejected the taxi union’s announcement that drivers would double the fares for shared service taxis, saying that only the Transportation Ministry can set these prices.
