The Ministries of Finance and Energy engaged in a spat through press releases on Friday. The reason for this quarrel? Payment for a cargo of fuel oil needed to run power plants and supply the Lebanese with electricity.
In a press release issued on Friday, the Ministry of Energy and Water reiterated that “there can be no sustainability to the implementation of the emergency plan for the electricity sector and the increase in power supply without importing fuel, in addition to the Iraqi fuel.”
The text states that the funds to pay for the fuel shipment are available and are included in the $300 million allocated to this by a government decision published in the Official Gazette last January. The Ministry pointed out that $193 million has been used to date, and that $107 million is still available.
“The latest letter of credit is for $58 million for the oil tanker, not $80 million. It has been approved by the Minister of Finance, and the Central Bank has to implement it,” the statement read.
Ironically, the Ministry asked anyone seeking information or asking questions on this subject to contact the relevant authorities, i.e. the government, the Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank, “because any other discourse misleads public opinion.”
To which the Ministry of Finance replied, “To enlighten the Ministry of Energy despite the darkness, we have to explain that we have done what we were asked to do. We sent a request to open a documentary line of credit in the amount of $58,877,946 in favor of Coral Energy DMCC at the beginning of the week, and there has been no delay.”
Consequently, “it is the responsibility of the Ministry in charge of lighting the country to disclose to the public the reasons for the delay to date, not to deliberately conceal the considerations that caused it.”
Former MP Wiam Wahhab added his own two cents, announcing that he intends to take the matter to court, leaving out the fact that there is a corruption case linked to the fuel oil shipment for which the country has to pay $80 million. According to Wahhab, “Lebanon currently has sufficient quantities of fuel oil and is refraining, for unknown reasons, from refining Iraqi fuel oil.”
