Traffic clogs a Lebanese street. (Credit: Hussam Shbaro)
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More than 2,000 households throughout the country unsubscribe from the public electricity network each day, a source at state provider Electricité du Liban (EDL) told L’Orient Today yesterday. Meanwhile, in Akkar governorate yesterday, queues of subscribers attempted to cancel their contracts at EDL branches in Halba, Abdeh and Qobeiyat, L’Orient Today’s correspondent in the area reported. The highest concentration of cancelations is likely to be in areas where subscribers regularly pay their bills, the EDL source added. A high volume of unpaid bills partly contributed to EDL’s delay in issuing invoices charging new tariffs introduced in November. EDL only recently began issuing bills with the increased tariffs, which are priced in dollars and converted to lira at 1.2 times the central bank’s Sayrafa rate. Gaps in EDL’s coverage, however, force residents to rely on costly private generator subscriptions — which, on average, cost Lebanese households 44 percent of their monthly income, Human Rights Watch said last Thursday.
Private school teachers are scheduled to hold a strike today to demand improved compensation, their union announced yesterday, parallel to a series of protests by public school teachers. The private school teachers’ union is demanding their retirement funds, a portion of their salaries in dollars, a fuel subsidy like the one provided to their public sector colleagues and an adjustment to the lira-to-dollar exchange rate adopted by schools, union head Nehmeh Mahfoud told L’Orient Today. The same day, around 200 public school teachers protested in front of the Education Ministry in Beirut, carrying banners calling for better health coverage and improved salaries, as dozens of their colleagues made similar demands in Nabatieh and Saida, South Lebanon. After the government granted educators 5 liters of gasoline per working day, several public teachers’ unions called for an end to the open-ended strike that began in January. Public teachers have held several protests over the past several weeks, refusing to return to classrooms until their demands are met.
European investigators returned to Beirut yesterday to continue an investigation into alleged malpractice by Banque du Liban (BDL) governor Riad Salameh, after receiving a greenlight to attend a Lebanese judge’s hearings with the central bank chief, judicial sources told Reuters. Foreign investigators will not be allowed to directly question Salameh, the same source said. A delegation of French, Luxembourgian and German judges concluded a January visit to Beirut by intending, according to a judicial source, to return to question Salameh — the subject of at least five European probes — after a series of hearings with BDL officials, bankers in the private sector and an auditor. The latest hearing was scheduled for this Wednesday by Attorney General at the Court of Appeal of Beirut Raja Hamouche after he charged Salameh, his brother, Raja, and one of his assistants with embezzlement and money laundering, illicit enrichment and tax evasion. The charges relaunched a long-stalled local investigation into the alleged embezzlement of hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of commissions from the sale of BDL assets through Forry Associates Ltd., a company owned by Raja Salameh. Riad Salameh has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and in January announced his intention to leave public office at the end of his current mandate, which marks his 30th year at the head of BDL.
“Things are on track and the vehicle registration centers will open again,” caretaker Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi said after a meeting with caretaker Premier Najib Mikati, without specifying when exactly the centers would be operational. Vehicle registration center closures caused by mass employee arrests have been causing disruption for months. Mawlawi also announced that the validity of drivers’ licenses has been extended until the end of the year while 30 members of the Internal Security Forces will receive training on vehicle center operations. As of January, “110 people [were] still under arrest, in the cases of the vehicle registration centers and land registries,” a judicial source told L’Orient Today after a crackdown on public sector corruption targeted several high-ranking employees, including the director general of the Road Traffic Department, Hoda Salloum.
In case you missed it, here’s our must-read story from yesterday: “Economic crisis, disarray, distress: New wave of suicides in Lebanon”
Compiled by Abbas Mahfouz