Électricité du Liban's headquarters in Beirut was damaged by the 2020 Beirut port explosion. (Credit: João Sousa/L'Orient Today)
BEIRUT — The state-owned Electricité du Liban on Wednesday that the theft of infrastructure material from downtown Beirut will cost the company more than $2 million in rehabilitation work.
In a statement, EDL said that its maintenance team checked the tunnels in the area of Solidere in downtown Beirut on May 22 and 23 and discovered "massive thefts" of infrastructure material, including electricity cables, lighting wires and water pumps, adding that the cost of rehabilitating the damage will exceed $2 million.
EDL also said it "urges security forces assigned to maintain security, and the municipality of Beirut, and the guards of Solidere to stay up at night to protect the security of the tunnels and facilities, and to track the thieves and reveal their identity in order to stop the series of violations," which it added the institution "can't bear anymore."
The theft of electricity cables has become common since a devastating economic crisis started to shape in Lebanon in 2019, increasing the resale value of imported, steel electricity wires after the depreciation of the Lebanese lira.