Twenty years ago, Law 462 required the establishment of the Electricity Regulatory Authority (ERA), but it has not seen the light until today.
Under the pressure of power outages and the local and international demand for reforms in the electricity sector and linking any funding from the World Bank to these reforms, foremost of which is the Regulatory Authority, the Ministry of Energy finally moved and began the process of appointing this body.
The ministry called those wishing to run for membership in the authority to submit applications no later than the end of January. The files will be evaluated by a committee appointed by the Minister of Energy and includes representatives of the administration and local and international experts in this field.
Sources following up on the issue said that international standards adopted by the World Bank will be the basis for selecting people whose files will be accepted as candidates for appointment to the electricity regulator.
The sources described the step as the first in a thousand-mile journey. The appointment requires an actual government because the appointment takes place in the Council of Ministers. However, there is no actual government without a new president, and there is a fear of linking the appointment to amendments to the powers of the authority and its structure.
The World Bank had demanded the appointment of the regulatory authority to finance the process of exporting gas and electricity from Egypt and Jordan.
The political leadership has completed multiple other prerequisites for the World Bank loan, including raising the price of the kilowatt tariff.
Yet, other conditions remain, including a financial audit in Electricité du Liban, limiting technical and non-technical transmission losses.
These measures give the World Bank confidence that Lebanon would not default on the loan for the Egyptian gas and Jordanian electricity and that EDL will not incur losses.