Lebanese Industrialists Call for Reconsideration of Electric Tariff Reduction for January and February 2023 Bills

The Association of Lebanese Industrialists called on the Minister of Energy and Water in the caretaker government, Walid Fayyad, and the Electricity Corporation of Lebanon, to “reconsider the decision issued to reduce the electric tariff for the issuance of bills for the months of January and February 2023, provided that they take into account the conditions of the Lebanese in general and the industrialists in particular, not Especially since the industrial sector is the real engine of the economic wheel in the country.

The association pointed out, commenting on the statement issued by the Electricity Corporation, that “the association is surprised that the translation of the discussions that took place in the meeting held in the Government Houses last Tuesday in Fayyad, devoted to the issue of electric tariffs, and how to benefit from the decline in oil derivatives prices and the exchange rate of the US dollar, is different. For what was agreed upon in terms of that the results should conclude to reduce the cost of the tariff, at least in the same proportion in which the prices of oil derivatives fell.

And she believed that “the reduction affected fixed costs, and this is positive, but not sufficient, because these costs must cover 24-hour service, while feeding does not exceed four hours per day in the best cases.”

And she stressed that “approval of the new tariff could have happened if the institution had succeeded in implementing its obligations to increase feeding hours, so that the cost of kilos would be lower. However, with the continuation of feeding according to a regulated program that does not exceed 4 hours per day, as we mentioned previously, this cost will be higher.”