EDL headquarters in Beirut. (Credit: P.H.B.)
The management of Electricité du Liban (EDL) announced that the Ministry of Finance has begun ordering the settlement of overdue invoices from certain public administrations and institutions, after insisting for several months that these arrears be paid. On Wednesday, EDL also activated additional production units in Zahrani (South Lebanon).
In a statement published on Tuesday, EDL said it had been informed on Thursday, June 6, that the Ministry of Finance had begun paying the sums owed by the presidency, government, Parliament and the Bekaa Water Board for “their electricity consumption during the period from Nov. 1, 2022 to April 30, 2023.”
The ministry has disbursed LL 134 billion, or nearly $1.5 million at the current exchange rate of LL 89,500 to the dollar, adds EDL, pointing out that the total amounts owed by public sector entities are LL 6,850 billion for the period from Nov. 1, 2022 to June 30, 2023 ($76.5 million). It should be noted that EDL is currently collecting July and August bill amounts from its subscribers.
Syrian refugee camps
The supplier's management further specifies that the payments were made by the Ministry of Finance in “fresh” Lebanese Lira, i.e. not from deposits blocked by banking restrictions in place since the start of the socio-economic crisis that erupted in 2019 and which are governed by Central Bank (BDL) circular no. 165.
EDL added that “the estimated consumption of electricity by the public sector, based on current production capacity, is estimated at around $107 million per year.” It also states that “174 out of 900 Syrian refugee camps” also began to settle their outstanding bills. For Palestinian refugees, the matter is “still being addressed in cooperation with the parties concerned, including the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA),” said the public supplier.
Lastly, EDL urged other administrations and institutions to get up to speed, starting by forwarding their overdue bills to the Ministry of Finance, and once again threatened to cut off power to defaulters – a threat repeated in recent months but never carried out.
In a second statement, EDL said it had been able to commission the equivalent of an additional 200 megawatts at the Zahrani power plant since Friday, June 7. The supplier claims to have been able to rationalize power generation at this site to gradually save enough fuel to bring these additional units on stream to offset the rise in consumption during the summer period, mainly linked to the use of air conditioners.
EDL hopes to be able to stabilize production and continue to supply between four and six hours of power a day, which is a derisory level but much higher than that achieved during the last few years of crisis, which severely impacted the supplier's already loss-making finances and its ability to purchase fuel. Although it can still only rely on deliveries of Iraqi fuel oil, guaranteed on preferential terms by an agreement signed in 2021 between Beirut and Baghdad and renewed since then, the public supplier has been able to rebalance its budget since its tariffs were adjusted to market prices at the end of 2022, after having been frozen for almost thirty years.
This article originally appeared in French in L'Orient-Le Jour.