BEIRUT — Former Energy Minister Walid Fayyad appeared before North Lebanon Investigative Judge Samaranda Nassar for questioning in the Msailha Dam case, local television station MTV reported.

The station did not provide further details.

Judge Nassar ordered the sealing of the Msailha Dam in Batroun in August 2024 over suspected embezzlement of public funds. The decision came a month after the financial prosecutor’s office referred the case to Nassar to investigate how the dam cost the Lebanese state $64 million despite its inefficiency and never having been used to hold any water.

Filled with water in December 2019, the dam sits just meters from the 17th-century Msailha Fort. It has been widely criticized, particularly by environmental activists who oppose large dams in Lebanon, projects often championed by Free Patriotic Movement leader and Batroun MP Gebran Bassil. Many consider the project costly, ineffective and environmentally damaging.

Designed to hold up to six million cubic meters of water and supply villages in the region, the dam has never managed to fulfill its intended function.

Water management remains a critical issue for Lebanon, a country rich in water resources compared to others in the Middle East but plagued by mismanagement despite multiple strategies launched since the end of the civil war in 1990.