BDL, EDL ask citizens to open 'fresh' Lira accounts to settle electricity bills

According to the decision of Électricité du Liban, citizens who use banks to settle electricity bills must open new "fresh" accounts in LBP.

A text message was received on the phones of many Lebanese in the past few days from the banks they deal with, and the banks asked those who wished to pay the electricity bill to open a new fresh account in Lebanese Liras.
 
This step might have seemed logical had EDL not announced the suspension of its work for several reasons, the most important of which are;

First, not allocating the necessary funds to buy fuel to increase the power supply by 8 to 10 hours due to political rivalries.

Second, is the failure to develop a security plan to support the institution in the collection process.

Third, the tariff amount in LBP was supposed to be calculated at a dollar exchange rate of Sayrafa plus 20 percent, but this is no longer reasonable, as such pricing exceeds the dollar price in the parallel market now.

How can citizens be asked to take a banking procedure to pay a bill in exchange for a service they will not receive?

Lebanon's EDL sources confirm to LBCI that the decision to issue bills according to the new tariff remains pending and that a meeting will be held by the EDL's board of directors next week to decide on this issue.

So while waiting, why did the banks request to open new fresh accounts in lira?

Sources at BDL told LBCI that the decision was taken to withdraw a bulk amount of Liras from circulation to limit the pressure on the price of the dollar. Moreover, the decision aims to prevent paying bills with checks from old accounts that have lost most of their value.

The Lebanese find themselves suspended between a stuck plan and an unreasonable collection attempt and procedure.