Postponing the gasoline crisis? Phalanges

Amal Khalil wrote on the news:

The gasoline delivery crisis from the oil facilities in Zahrani yesterday was not resolved, contrary to what was promised by the management of the oil facilities and the unions of the station and tank owners. After the Zahrani facilities were unable to deliver gasoline on Tuesday and postponed until yesterday, they only delivered 20 percent of the two million liters promised by companies and owners of stations and tanks. Several of those who waited in front of the facilities in Zahrani yesterday told Al-Akhbar about the distribution of twenty percent to favoritism and favoritism. “Each distribution company was supposed to have two or three tanks. However, the unfortunate companies got a tanker truck, while some distributors had loads of about 5,000 liters discounted to pass them on to influential people who sold gasoline on the black market ”.

Sources from the establishments indicated that the administration “will not deliver gasoline today and will establish a delivery program of three days a week.” Why this rationing of delivery despite the ships emptying their cargo in light of the depletion of gasoline at many stations? Sources suggested that the Banque du Liban asked the establishments to slow down the delivery of fuel, so that companies did not exhaust the dollar balance available at the Central Bank, the need to pay for fuel.
Meanwhile, and in a notable step, Auror Al-Feghali, Petroleum CEO in charge of managing the oil facilities, decided to impose bank guarantees as a prerequisite for the delivery of fuel from oil facilities to traders “to ensure the collection of bank checks received by companies at the facilities “. The measure was considered a precedent of its kind, since it calls into question the bank’s solvency and the power of clearing bank checks, as well as increasing costs and complicating procedures, noting that the Faghali procedure is not based on any text legal and entails an increase in the burdens of small merchants in favor of large ones. According to a concerned ministry source, the measure leads in the long run “to the need for small traders to stop withdrawing the allocated amounts of benzene due to their inability to secure the legally undue guarantee, especially for reasons to impose a bank guarantee. by a public administration or a public institution o Any person governed by public law must guarantee that the implementation of an obligation falls on the other party that contracts with people of public law.

Al-Feghali requires traders to obtain bank guarantees before receiving fuel from oil facilities
This obligation is not available in the case of the purchase of gasoline, as long as the company allows withdrawing the amounts paid by the price before delivery, either in cash or by bank checks, in addition to the decision to allow withdrawal of a certain portion of gasoline is a single administrative act and not an administrative contract within the framework of implementation. Specific treatment ».
But, does the General Directorate of Petroleum have the right to take such a measure? According to the source, “the oil facilities have the status of a public institution, considering that the Directorate is the one that manages them in accordance with legislative decree No. 1977/79, and is subject to the recent supervision of the Audit Bureau. Furthermore, the funds resulting from the purchase and sale of crude oil have the character of public money. Therefore, the management of the facilities does not have the right to take any action that is not based on a public or private provision, such as the imposition of an improper bank guarantee, and the principles in force in commerce and industry do not justify this procedure.