On Friday, the Ministry of Finance announced that it has transferred USD 13.250 million to the Central Bank, a sum requested by the Ministry of Telecommunication to finance Ogero, the public internet and telephone provider company.
The money will be used to purchase fuel and pay maintenance charges for a period of three months. However, it does not cover salary increases requested by the company’s employees who threatened to initiate a two-day “warning strike” on June 6th and 8th.
Ogero is at the heart of a brawl between the Ministries of Telecommunication and Finance, with the former accusing the latter of blocking USD 26 million allocated for the maintenance of communication networks.
Despite approval by the caretaker government, the Ministry of Finance has refrained, since the beginning of the year, from disbursing the funds needed for maintenance and for the purchase of fuel to operate power generators in the telephone centers, thus threatening the disruption of the service.
Earlier this week, Ogero’s Director General Imad Kreidieh sounded the alarm warning that no less than 30 telephone and internet centers would be out of service by Sunday, June 4th due to lack of fuel to operate power generators.
