For all those who are going to read this let me put you in the context: In Lebanon electricity 24/7 does NOT exist! In some places there is a blackout of 3 hours and in other places there is a blackout of 12 to 16 hours!
So we (normal citizens) have to use generators to have electricity during blackout periods
Here are my theories about WHY is this situations (and lots of people agree to it)
1- The infrastructure is OLD, in fact it dates from 1993 and some says from before the war. My parents told me that before the war there used to be electricity 24/7
2- Lebanon does not get enough fuel to produce the Lebanese daily need in Electricity
3- Stealing. Politician just cut the electricity so they could save some money for there pockets
4- Private generator lobby! Their is a lobby for private generators, and they put pressure on the government (and even pay them) to do not fix the problem; because if it is fixed, their whole "industry"/machination will go down. So we are once again in the corruption problem
5-We have people who "steal" electricity from their neighbor. They just fix the corresponding wire which is an easy but risky task and, MAGIC, they have "free" electricity thus consuming more and more without worrying about the bill
These are the most common theories about the electricity shortage. All of them are involved, it's not just ONE
Now what are the different solutions to the problem?
-The first solution is privatization! We need to privatize the "public" electricity company in order to get a better management and a better administration because we have seen what the current electricity's administration is doing.
-The second is setting a maximum price for the generator owner because right now everyone is acting like a mafia and setting a high price.
-Building more power plant and renewing the infrastructure of the existing ones on a longer term.
-Use more "Green" energy that will reduce the use of oil.
What is the government actually DOING for us?
In December 2011, the minister of electricity&water said that they will cut the power more often this winter in order to face the high electric consumption of summer 2012. True we had lots of blackout this winter, but I don't know whether or not we will have more power this summer.
They signed a contract with an American and Turkish company that will provide us with electricity through the use of boat.
I don't really know now what the problem is and why it hasn't been implemented yet but let:'s hope for the best. I'll update this section as soon as the story gets clearer.
Cheers and hope for the best!
UPADTE: It seems that the website of the minister of and electricity has been hacked!Here is the website: www.moew.gov.lb
Here is the message they left also on ALL the website they hacked:
So we (normal citizens) have to use generators to have electricity during blackout periods
Here are my theories about WHY is this situations (and lots of people agree to it)
1- The infrastructure is OLD, in fact it dates from 1993 and some says from before the war. My parents told me that before the war there used to be electricity 24/7
2- Lebanon does not get enough fuel to produce the Lebanese daily need in Electricity
3- Stealing. Politician just cut the electricity so they could save some money for there pockets
4- Private generator lobby! Their is a lobby for private generators, and they put pressure on the government (and even pay them) to do not fix the problem; because if it is fixed, their whole "industry"/machination will go down. So we are once again in the corruption problem
5-We have people who "steal" electricity from their neighbor. They just fix the corresponding wire which is an easy but risky task and, MAGIC, they have "free" electricity thus consuming more and more without worrying about the bill
These are the most common theories about the electricity shortage. All of them are involved, it's not just ONE
Now what are the different solutions to the problem?
-The first solution is privatization! We need to privatize the "public" electricity company in order to get a better management and a better administration because we have seen what the current electricity's administration is doing.
-The second is setting a maximum price for the generator owner because right now everyone is acting like a mafia and setting a high price.
-Building more power plant and renewing the infrastructure of the existing ones on a longer term.
-Use more "Green" energy that will reduce the use of oil.
What is the government actually DOING for us?
In December 2011, the minister of electricity&water said that they will cut the power more often this winter in order to face the high electric consumption of summer 2012. True we had lots of blackout this winter, but I don't know whether or not we will have more power this summer.
They signed a contract with an American and Turkish company that will provide us with electricity through the use of boat.
I don't really know now what the problem is and why it hasn't been implemented yet but let:'s hope for the best. I'll update this section as soon as the story gets clearer.
UPADTE: It seems that the website of the minister of and electricity has been hacked!Here is the website: www.moew.gov.lb
Here is the message they left also on ALL the website they hacked:
To our dear "beloved" Lebanese Government,
We are RYV, short for Raise Your Voice, and we are simply a group of people who could not bare sitting in silence, watching all the crimes and injustice going on in Lebanon. We will not be silenced and brainwashed by your media. We will not stop until the Lebanese people mobilize, demand their rights, and earn them. We will not stop until the standards of living are raised to where they should be in Lebanon. We will not stop until this government's self-made problems are solved, like the power shortage, water shortage, rise in gas prices and rise in food product prices. We are RYV, expect us to break the silence, whether in the streets or on the Internet.Silence is a crime.
We are RYV, short for Raise Your Voice, and we are simply a group of people who could not bare sitting in silence, watching all the crimes and injustice going on in Lebanon. We will not be silenced and brainwashed by your media. We will not stop until the Lebanese people mobilize, demand their rights, and earn them. We will not stop until the standards of living are raised to where they should be in Lebanon. We will not stop until this government's self-made problems are solved, like the power shortage, water shortage, rise in gas prices and rise in food product prices. We are RYV, expect us to break the silence, whether in the streets or on the Internet.Silence is a crime.
The problem is not with the "privatization".
ReplyDeleteThe government (before Gebran Bassil as far I know, did not follow then but he wasnt talking about it) wanted to privatize, not the production but the distribution and the bill collections by regional compartiments and therefore creating regional monopoles.
So it wasnt resolving the production problem, moreover, there would have been discrypancies btw regions.
I dont think, according to the lebanese constitution stating there is an egality btw citizens that it was nor constitutional or technically a correct way to deal with regional development.
The best privatization scenario would be - in case of regional scenario - that the production+distribution+bill collection to be privatized but with a sort of competition among distributors, therefore the abolition of the global monopoly of EDL and a sort of competition btw operators. For ex as a Beirut resident, you can buy electricity from Batroun's operator and pay him if his prices are lower.