Caretaker Energy Minister says BDL has kept feeding hours at 4-5 hours

Caretaker Energy Minister, Walid Fayyad, held on Thursday a press conference in the presence of Kamal Hayek, the General Director of Electricité du Liban (EDL), whereby they discussed the electricity plan and developments in several files related to the ministry.

Fayyad announced that there is a "relatively small success" for the electricity plan, saying, "There is an intention to increase the feeding hours to 8-10 hours per day, but the limited funding from Banque du Liban (BDL) has kept the feeding hours at 4-5 hours."

He also pointed out that "the increase in feeding is sustainable due to the presence of a tariff that covers its cost. The figures show that the cost of one kilowatt-hour per household is approximately 40 percent of the cost of one kilowatt-hour given by private generators."

Fayyad said regarding encroachments on the electricity network, "The decision was to increase the feeding after removing the encroachments, and there is positive progress regarding their removal. There is indeed a delay, but the indicators we have seen since the start of the emergency plan implementation in February, indicate that things are going well."

In response to allegations that some areas benefit from electricity at the expense of others, Fayyad explained, "The loss ratio in each energy outlet is measured through statistics on the number of violation reports compared to the number of subscribers. There is progress, but there must be an improvement."

Regarding currency and opening credits, Fayyad confirmed that "it is important to have active cooperation between the Finance Ministry and BDL to open credits. We hope BDL will open the credits soon to avoid fuel delays."