Importers are exploiting people to put pressure on the Central Bank of Lebanon … End of a man-made gasoline crisis!

Elie Ferzli wrote in “Al-Akhbar”: The fuel crisis, which was not originally a crisis, is over. The oil companies’ decision not to distribute gasoline and diesel from Thursday was aimed at pressuring the Central Bank of Lebanon to open credits for shipments arriving in Beirut. People were held hostage, until credits were opened and companies redistributed yesterday!

Since last fall, people have known nothing but anxiety. They live at the mercy of the Banque du Liban and its circulars and decisions. Buying at the official dollar exchange rate is called support. All were normalized with the idea as they were normalized with the theft of depositors’ money, the rest of which is used in this support process.

The first subsidized items were fuel, wheat, and drugs. It was the beginning of October 2019. After 10 months, Riad Salameh did not hesitate to announce that he could not continue with the support. The equation became: Your money is ours, not your support. That was a step that increased the level of anxiety. When does support end? A question for which an answer is not yet known. At the end of the week, however, the scene of the queues in front of the gas stations took center stage again, indicating that the implementation would not be far behind, although the reason was as usual: the delay of the Central Bank of the Lebanon in the opening of credits.

Sunday and Monday witnessed a serious crisis, before it came back and launched yesterday. This time, the gasoline was not lost as before. Importing companies decided on Thursday to respond to the Banque du Liban’s refusal to open loans for two ships that arrived on Tuesday, under the pretext of not informing them in advance. Therefore, it agreed in a joint meeting not to distribute the fuel. At the time, some companies reassured their customers about the availability of fuel in the country, revealing that this step was aimed at pressuring the Central Bank to open credits for ships arriving in Beirut. Here, companies did not hesitate to exploit people to achieve their goal. And I have already decided not to distribute fuel on Fridays (normally it is not done on Saturday and Sunday). By Sunday, some stations had run out of gas. That same day, these stations reported that there would be no distribution on Mondays either. All the companies complied and the stations began to close one after another.

Yesterday, sources from the Ministry of Energy made it clear that the crisis had been resolved. The company “Uniterminal” first obtained approvals and unloaded their goods from the ship, while Total and “Liquigaz” promised to open their credits. The same happened with the company “BP Energy”, which brought a diesel steam for the oil installations, and the opening of the credit was delayed.

The issue of delay is related to the so-called “confirmed credits” (confirmed CV). An industry worker compares this credit to a check showing that funds are available. The same thing is repeated here. The issuance of a credit confirmed by the Banque du Liban represents a guarantee that it will pay the credit upon arrival of the shipment.

Some companies, and as a result of their relationships with the supplier companies, may import the merchandise without a confirmed approval, because either they do not need a guarantee to obtain the merchandise or because they can pay abroad before obtaining the money from the Banque du Liban , and the result will be a delay in obtaining the loan, until the Banque du Liban completes the procedures for opening the loan.

As a result, credits were opened under pressure from the beginning of the loss of material from the market, and importers managed to use people to pressure the Banque du Liban, but no one guarantees that this crisis will not return, linked to the decision of the bank of adjust the subsidy rate.

According to the information, a meeting was held yesterday at the Banque du Liban to determine the modification in the subsidy rate, in relation to the information provided by the companies on their needs until the end of the year, in preparation to determine their support capacity. Although he did not leak any information about the meeting, concerned sources indicated that the decision will not affect diesel, but gasoline, whose subsidy will be reduced. All this ignores the fact that obtaining credits at the official rate is a right of people who pay seven thousand pounds of the price of a license plate in taxes and fees, and whose minimum wage is still 675 thousand pounds.