The civil administration officesin Qobeiyat in Akkar (North Lebanon) have not power. (Credit: Michel Hallak/L'Orient Today)
BEIRUT — The administration in charge of the civil status registers of Qobeiyat, in Akkar, North Lebanon, closed its doors Thursday due to lack of electricity, preventing the inhabitants of more than 50 localities in the surrounding area from finalizing their administrative procedures.
Here’s what we know:
• Electricity was cut in the local administration, and the monthly bill for the generator supplying the premises could not be paid, L’Orient-Le Jour’s correspondent reported.
• According to Marwan Waridi, head of the league mokhtars (officials responsible for records) of Wadi Khaled, a locality of this region, the inhabitants of 56 villages of Akkar are therefore unable to recover the documents they may need to carry out various procedures.
• Waridi called on the authorities of the region to intervene so that the building is supplied with electricity or to equip it with solar panels.
• In recent months, Lebanese administrations have suffered from severe rationing of state-provided power, limited to a few hours a day, and high bills from private generators providers, whose machines are powered by diesel, which has dramatically increased in price since the ending of fuel subsidies on the official dollar to lira exchange rate of LL1,507.5 last year. The lira is presently trading at LL34,000 to the dollar on the parallel market.
• Employees in various sectors, such as telecommunications, transportation and academia, have repeatedly voiced concerns about insufficient salaries, deteriorating living conditions and inability to commute to work due to the increase in fuel prices.